CINEMA FILMS

Southland Times, Issue 20979, 11 January 1930, Page 2

CINEMA FILMS

PROJECTION ROOM FIRES. AUDIENCES NOT ENDANGERED. MANY SAFETY PRECAUTIONS. An assurance that New Zealand audiences would not be endangered in the event of outbreaks of fire in theatre projection rooms was contained in a statement issued recently by the Minister of Internal Affairs (Hon. P. A. de la Perrelle). The statement, prompted by the recent theatre disaster at Paisley (Scotland), in which 70 children lost their lives, read as follows:— “The Kinematograph Films Act, 1928, contains provisions for ensuring public safety in picture theatres, and are the regulations under the Act being generally observed in picture theatres in New Zealand. The regulations require that the projection room in which the film is screened be of fireresisting construction and provided with flues to carry away flame and smoke so that even if all the film in the room is ignited there will be no serious danger of the theatre catching fire. Fire extinguishers are required to be placed alongside the machines for use in emergency, but the film not actually being screened must be kept in a fire-proof metal box. In addition to this the openings in the theatre wall through which the screening takes place are required to be fitted with fire-proof drop-shutters which are arranged to work automatically in the event of fire, preventing more than a minimum amount of smoke reaching the auditorium. Serious Risk Excluded. “It is desirable that the public should be assured that there is no danger to the audience in the event of fire in the projection room. In the use of highly inflammable material such as kinematograph film, which is exposed to the heat of the electric arc, a certain number of fires is inevitable, but the safeguards insisted on both by Government regulations and by the theatre proprietors themselves, practically exclude the risk of serious fire. On the average about a dozen such fires occur each year, and in most cases the audience is not aware of what has happened and the fire is out before the fire brigade can reach the theatre. The principal danger in theatre fires arises not from the fire itself but from the panic arising from the smoke which is given off liberally by burning film.” Effects of Burning Film. As to whether fumes from burning film in a projection room would be sufficient to cause asphyxia, as in the case of the recent hospital fire in Cleveland, the statement set out that the quantity of film in volved in the Cleveland disaster was between three and four tons, whereas the weight of an average theatre programme i was 50 to 701 b. The special vents proI vided in the projection room for the escape I of gases made it impossible for sufficient gas to escape to the auditorium to affect the audience. Operators had occasionally been affected while fighting these fires, but . there was no case on record of the gas i affecting the theatre audience. The department had had constructed a | model projection room for the purpose of ' demonstrations with fire extinguishers, and arrangements had been made to hold a public demonstration this month while the motion picture exhibitors' conference was in session in Wellington, so as to enable the fire and insurance authorities, and the trade generally, to see the effect of burning film in a projection room.