Check out Article V which deals with Nitrate film. It looks like the City of Yonkers, New York really has some real clomps on this stuff.

Here is an excerpt:
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B. Nitrate film in any projection room or rewinding room shall be kept as follows:

(1) Up to forty (40) pounds of film [eight thousand (8,000) feet of 35-mm film] may be kept in I.C.C. shipping containers or an approved cabinet in each room.

(2) If the amount of film on hand exceeds forty (40) pounds, an approved cabinet shall be provided, in which the amount of film in excess of forty (40) pounds shall be kept.

~ 24-68. Special room required for examining, piecing and repairing film.

All examining, rewinding of reels, repairing or piecing together of flammable motion-picture films shall be done in a booth, room or compartment used for no other purpose and separated from the rest of the building by fireproof partitions and self-closing fire-resisting doors.

~ 24-69. Flammable cement or liquid storage restricted.

No celloidin, amylacetate or other similar flammable cement or liquid in quantities greater than one (1) quart shall be kept in a room where flammable motion-picture films are stored or repaired.

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Check out Article IV. Looks like a projectionist really has to jump through a million hoops to get a license to operate the booth in that area. Hmmmm.....maybe professionalism will finally make a come back.

http://www.cityofyonkers.com/code/ycc024.html

OK, I am convinced Nitrate film is some nasty stuff. But the question I have is: Just really how nasty is it? Personally, I wouldn't touch that stuff with a 100 meter pole.

Joe, I watched your training videos on it, and that also adds to the idea that I don't want anything to do with Nitrate film. Am I just being paranoid, or what?

Sorry, Brad. When I try that "click here" thing, it turns to worms.

We deal with substances which if misued can kill us all the time. The electricity wired all over our homes and workplaces, for example. In our cars we spend hours sitting 3-4 feet away from several gallons of petrol which, if it is ignited anywhere other than inside the cylinders of the engine, will produce a Kentucky fried driver. Yet very few people get burnt alive in their cars or electrocuted in their homes. When nitrate was in regular use in cinemas all over the world there were very few accidents relative to the number of workplaces involved, and the accidents which did happen were usually caused (either directly or indirectly) by human error.

Cellulose nitrate film has the following properties which make it distinct from most other combustible substances:

• Once ignited, the fire cannot be extinguished by the conventional method, i.e. cutting off its oxygen supply. The burning proces generates its own oxygen, meaning that nitrate will continue to burn, even under water.
  
• The fumes given off by nitrate are highly toxic.
  
• Nitrate becomes more volatile as it decomposes. Up until first stage decomposition it will burn rapidly; from that point on it has the potential to become explosive.
  

From this it will be clear that cure is to all intents and purposes impossible, so safety precautions are designed to prevent the stuff igniting in the first place, and if it does ignite to manage the burning process so that it doesn't endanger anyone.

An archive has a much easier job than a rep cinema which still shows nitrate, because the former does not need to expose the film to any significant heat source. The basic rules of thumb are as follows:

• Store it in a cool, dry environment. This both reduces the risk of ignition and inhibits the decomposition process. The latter is important both to preserve the film for future copying and to prevent it from becoming more volatile.
  
• Store it in an enviroment in which, if it does ignite, no human life is endangered. For example, the National Film and Television Archive use fuel dumps at a disused Royal Air Force base in Warwickshire. They're in the middle of nowhere and the fuel dumps were designed to contain burning kerosene.
  
• Keep the amount of nitrate used in a work area to a minumum. Don't leave tens of cans lying around a printer or winding bench.
  
• When working with nitrate, keep it away from sources of ignition. For example, on the bench we use to inspect nitrate, I've replaced the filament bulb in the built-in light box with a flourescent tube, as it generates less heat. It's also important to keep equipment properly earthed, so it doesn't generate static sparks. I wear an earth strap round my wrist like the ones they sell in computer shops when examining nitrate elements.
  
• Make sure that any room in which nitrate is worked on has at least two escape routes. Preferably, one of them should lead directly to the outside of the building. Therefore if it does ignite, you can get the f**k out.
  

In some ways cinemas need to be even more anal. I know of only one cinema in the UK which is licensed to show nitrate and still does so 2-3 times per year - it's really not common. The problem is, of course, that in projecting it you have to expose the film to serious heat, i.e. from the projector's xenon lamp. But the same principles apply - store safely, prevent ignition, prevent risk to life from burning film. In projectors, preventing ignition includes things such as liquid-cooled gates, heat filter glass and fire cutters on magazine manifolds, whilst preventing risk from burning film includes fire shutters on portholes, enclosed spool magazines on projectors and providing two fire exits from the booth (again, one of them directly to the exterior of the building).

These precautions also apply to transporting nitrate as well. Use a refrigerated and armoured truck, do not carry too much nitrate in one trip and move it in fire-retardant boxes. Should a fire break out, the truck needs to be strong enough for the driver to have time to stop and get out.

Frankly, private collectors hold the stuff at their own (considerable) risk. Were there to be a fire involving nitrate in your house, then no way would your insurance company pay up if they found out it was there... that is, if you were still alive to make a claim.

quote:

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Someone told me once that when nitrate goes bad, reddish in color, it acts like dynamite.

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When nitrate is first manufactured, it is prone to rapid combustion (burning). My chemistry is a bit hazy on the details of the decomposition process, but suffice as to say it starts out as nitrocellulose and gradually turns into a substance similar to nitroglycerine - an explosive. According to Chambers' Dictionary...

• Combustion: a chemical reaction in which a gas, liquid or solid is rapidly oxidized, producing heat and light.
  
• Explosion: a sudden and violent increase in pressure.
  

'Powdery' nitrate (second stage decomposition) isn't significantly more volatile than nitrate which is still serviceable, but once it starts going sticky and sludgy (third stage) then you really need to watch out. In particular, do not attempt to dispose of it by burning - it could be the last match you strike...

Look at the three nitrate fire videos in the "Video" section of Film-Tech to get an appreciation of how fast and furious nitrate burns. The toxic gasses have been the usual killer.
http://www.geocities.com/soho/square/5632/nitratefires.html
http://www.clevelandclinic.org/act/frames/chp3/chp3_1.htm
http://www.clevelandclinic.org/act/frames/chp3/chp3_2.htm

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

There was also a serious fire at Hendersons in South London, a lab specialising in archival duplication work, in the early '90s. In this case the fire retardant vaults did their job and no-one was hurt. But a lot of valuable film was lost, though, including the camera negatives of Kind Hearts and Coronets and Whisky Galore, which were being reprinted for an Ealing retrospective at the Barbican Cinema...
 

I'll just leave the Nitrate film in the hands of the professionals who have the proper facilities and equipment in place and know what the hell they are doing.

Although there may still be some booths in the world that can safely handle the projection of Nitrate film, there are probably hundreds of booths that cannot even though they were designed for it. However, due to building and equipment deterioration, they may not be able to safely handle it today without going through the expense of getting the booths and the equipment up to specifications.

Most fire shutters have been removed from the projectors. Those shutters would drop if the projector would fall to half-speed. The old Simplexes and even the older XL's had a loop trip mechanism that would immediately close the fire shutter, along with other machines as well.

All that equipment has been removed from most of the projectors because they were troublesome. The magazine fire trap rollers are more than likely worn out if they are still in use, or they might have been replaced with plastic rollers. I doubt if the extremely worn steel rollers or the plastic rollers would keep the fire from entering the magazines. That's where the real problems could start.

--jhawk
 

And yet, I can relate some extremely weird stories that have happened (which most would consider coincidence) to me with people, places, and things, some of which to this day make my hair stand on end. The latest one happened yesterday, but I won't go into it. It's personal.

Josh
 

Quite honestly, they were the only XL's I have seen that were equipped with them. I am not sure when the first XL was built, but I know they were in the 3 digit serial numbers. 2** comes to mind..., so that had to have been around 1952, about 1 year or less after the Nitrate film was discontinued by Kodak. In the old Capitol Theatre in Manitowoc, Wisconsin (my home town) is where (in early 1952) I saw my first 35mm projection booth, and it had new projectors. Simplex XL's....with Brenkert Enarcs behind them. The XL's were sitting on top of the RCA-9030 sound heads, and had a WHOPPING 25-watt vacuum tube sound system, complete with the very pretty blue bulbs in a cage. I just turned 12 years old then. Of course, at the time I did not know what a loop tripper was even if it bit me in the ass.

Damn....I am getting old. Seems like 1952 was yesterday.

The lungs being consumed by Nitric Acid? That has to be a very painful and horrible death. No Thanks, not today.

Josh, the Simplex XL made its debut in 1949. Maybe the ones I got from Dolby Labs could have been 1950/1951 vintage. They sure were nice machines...

I think I still will leave Nitrate film in the hands of the professionals....
http://www.geocities.com/soho/square/5632/nitratephotos.html