From Anne Thompson:

More than two hundred firefighters battled a raging blaze on soundstages at the Universal Studios back lot Sunday morning, which was eventually contained. Look at this video.

Helicopters dropped water on several blocks of burning structures, including a King Kong exhibit, which was destroyed. According to one fire official, the cause of the fire is unknown. UPDATE: At a news conference, Universal studio chief Ron Meyer said he had not heard about any bomb threat. He added that the Universal Park would open at noon Sunday. But tram tours would skirt King Kong. [On Hollywood]

Eeeeek! Fire that close to important film history is scary..

Luckily, even though some digital copies were damaged, no unique film prints were:

Contents of the studio’s video-library vault were damaged, but the vault contained only digital copies of more than 40,000 film and TV titles. No negatives or film masters were affected.

“Fortunately, nothing irreplaceable was lost,” Meyer said. “We have duplicates.” [THR]

Something like this makes you realize how important archiving is..
takepart learn more about filmmakers who are for film preservation with The Film Foundation.

Also, read on:

• Blaze Destroys Sections of Universal Studios
• Fire’s effect on productions will be negligible, Universal says
• Hollywood magic lost in blaze