The storage vaults, located on Lot 3, were spaced apart from one another to prevent fire from spreading between vaults. Studio manager
Roger Mayer described the vaults as "concrete bunk houses" and stated that it was considered at the time as "good storage because [the films] couldn't be stolen". The vaults were not equipped with sprinkler systems and each had only a small fan in the roof for ventilation. However, Mayer believed that a sprinkler system would have made little difference because "the amount [the studio] lost by fire was minimal". Unlike most major studios, MGM sought to preserve its early productions and those of its predecessors
Metro Pictures,
Goldwyn Pictures and
Louis B. Mayer Productions, as well as prints of films purchased for
remake value. The studio did not participate in the common practice of purposeful destruction of its catalog and even sought to preserve films of little apparent commercial value. Beginning in the 1930s, MGM donated prints and
negatives of its silent films to film archives, predominantly
George Eastman House, and in the early 1960s, it began a preservation program led by Mayer to transfer
nitrate film prints onto
safety film. == Fire ==