Reconstructing the Past: The National Personnel Record Center Fire of 1973

[rolt968]

I don't know if anything in this is of any value. Obviously a lot is about WW2 US Soldiers. I knew that there had been a fire and that was all. It hadn't even occurred to me that there were also US "burnt records"!

Anyway  for what it is worth here is the links:

https://blog.fold3.com/reconstructing-the-past-the-national-personnel-record-center-fire-of-1973/?utm_source=find&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=find-Oct-2022

RM

[clive_hughes]

Just in passing,

when I was training as an archivist, this fire was held up to us as an example of why record storage should be reviewed and altered.  The boxes of papers were stacked on shelves, and once the fire got going the first part of the boxes to be affected was the end.  As the end burnt off, the papers inside cascaded down and added to the blaze, so it fed itself and got worse.  

Not sure if a factor was also that the boxes were on metal shelves - I do know that it is possible in fires for the shelves to buckle with the heat, dislodging record boxes, and once again adding fuel to the flames below.  I once viewed a more modern county archive storage area where the shelves were made of wood, between metal ends.  The theory was that it was better to have some singeing or charring of the wooden shelves rather than risk warping metal ones and ending up with the scenario above.

[seaJane]

And I recall hearing of at least one basement archive storage area where papers survived a fire but not the water coming through the ceiling from the fire-brigade's extinguishing efforts. Or the East Sussex Record Office in Lewes where the lowest shelves were a statutory x inches off the ground to keep them out of water; but when the River Ouse burst its banks in 2000 the ensuing breach of the doors under the weight of water left the archives flooded to a depth of nine feet.