Memories of the Fire

Submitted by Salt Stories on Mon, 01/02/2012 - 7:55am.

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.

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Salt Stories

The Salt Stories blog features the work of students at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, a 15-week educational program training aspiring writers, radio producers, and photographers in the art of nonfiction storytelling. We believe everyone has a story to tell, and we work with our students to use journalistic skills and ethics to produce powerful and objective work. Each semester we are proud to send a group of documentarians and nonfiction storytellers out into the world hoping that they continue to shape our ever-changing media landscape.

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