Memories of the Fire

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On September 24, 1970, an explosion and fire flattened the Port Clyde Sardine factory. "The explosion, it went hundred of feet, those great big timbers went hundreds of feet in the air," remembers volunteer fireman Wayne Hilt in Memories of a Fire, a video produced by Alex Acquisto, Ashley Cleek, Nellie Large, and Emma Weatherill, students at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. "When I looked up, those great big timbers, 24-foot long ones, went spinning. Cans, wood, timbers. I said, 'This is it. I've had it.'"

The video recalls not only the explosion, but the reverberating social and economic effects of the factory’s destruction on the small port village.

Watch Memories of a Fire. [2]