Grand Forks, ND, 1997.  Several organizations saved backups or records at
locations away from the city in anticipation of the flood.  Others simply
relocated records stored in basements or on the ground floor to upper floors
of the existing buildings.  When the fire destroyed the core of the city,
these records were lost.

One of the most important collections was the county records that contained
property records.  Losing the collection made it very difficult to buy or
sell property, obtain insurance coverage or settlement for damages, or
obtain loans.  As a result of the lessons learned, FEMA provided a grant to
ND Counties to microfilm property records for vital records protection
purposes.

http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/NDCASS/NDCASS_1/NDCASS_1_19990907_en.htm

Bill R


On 10/18/07, Hugh Smith <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> After years of examining our behavior I have come to realize we are
> like the Genome Project where thousands of computers were used to
> provide computing power for decoding the human genome.  Here we have
> at any given time 1200+ Records Managers; expert at searching
> libraries, the web, University Sites on a global basis.  An amazing
> amount of knowledge and computing power.
>
> Given that this List has that ability I am here to ask for help in
> filling in some holes.
>
> Now I pay pretty good attention to fires and catastrophic
> destruction.  I fight with Corporations, Museums, Colleges, Counties,
> Town Halls, etc. on increasing their level of protection for their
> records centers and vaults.
>
> To further show my perversion on the topic, I belong to the NFPA 232
> Technical Committee on Protection of Records.  But I wish to
> determine just what level of risk exists for records stored in large
> records centers.
>
> My recollection of large fires in records centers, by progression, in
> the last decade run to the following:
>
> Recall (Brambles) in Illinois
> Iron Mountain in New Jersey (3 sites on three days)
> Diversified Records in Pennsylvania
> Richards & Richards (This was actually fairly small due to their
> design and quick management action.)
> 9/11 as there were several records repositories within the site.
> ?? Large Records Center in Lyon, France(Could our French members
> provide the names)
> Iron Mountain in Ottawa, Canada
> Iron Mountain Fire in London, UK
> NARA has had several fires, varying sizes
> Archive America in Florida
>
> Can anyone add any records center fires of large scale that I have
> missed?
>
> Have any corporate records centers burned?
>
> I am compiling records along with fire reports to determine what can
> be done to limit destruction.  Clearly arson has proved unstoppable.
> Or so they say!
>
> But a familiarity with every fire would be of value.
>
> Hugh Smith
> FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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> (610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
> WWW.FIRELOCK.COM
>
>
> 
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