There is a large fire at Universal Studios. The fire started around 4:45 AM PT on the New York and New England sound stages and continued to spread. The L.A. City Fire Department dispatched over 400 firefighters to the scene to fight the blaze.

Captain Brown from the LAFD stated that 9 firefighters and a sheriff’s deputy were treated for injuries and the fire has been contained, though the thick black smoke plume is still hanging in the air. There were numerous propane tank explosions in several of the buildings. Helicopters were seen dropping water onto the burning structures.

Fire officials were concerned about the fire spreading to outlying brush and reported that water supplies were low at times throughout the day. Investigators have not yet pinpointed how the blaze began. A total of three blocks of facades dating back to the 1930’s were destroyed.

President and COO or Universal Studios Ron Meyer said:

Fortunately, nothing irreplaceable was lost. The video library was affected and damaged, but our main vault of our motion picture negatives was not. The Changeling set, Courthouse Square where scenes from Back to the Future were shot, the Earthquake ride and the King Kong exhibit were destroyed. Between 40,000 and 50,000 videos and reels in vaults were damaged but duplicates are kept at another location.

This is not the first fire to threaten the studio. Six major blazes have struck the Universal backlot over the years, as far back as 1932 and as most recently as 1997.

Check out photos of the blaze on the next page.

To see more photos of the fire check out Reuters photo gallery

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