19731776 Club
Fire guts the sixth floor of St. Louis records center; up to 18 million military files are ash
The NPRC building had no sprinklers, no fire barriers, and open storage floors 728 feet long; crews could not fully enter for 22 hours, and not one destroyed file had a backup copy.
Just after midnight on July 12, 1973, the Olivette Fire Department received a report that the NPRC building was on fire, with a passing motorcyclist also observing the flames. The building had no sprinklers, no fire barriers, and floors of open records storage 728 feet long, so the fire spread unchecked for 22 hours before crews could even fully enter. By the time it was declared out on July 16, the entire sixth floor was gone, taking 16 to 18 million U.S. military personnel files with it. None of those records had duplicates or microfilm backups…
