Workers started Universal fire

June 02, 2008 Fire officials said Monday that Sunday's backlot inferno at Universal was accidentally started by workers using a blowtorch to heat asphalt shingles being applied to a structure. The accident sparked a fire that tore through the Universal backlot and faux cityscape Sunday. The fire destroyed a King Kong attraction on the studio's backlot tram tour, a much-used New York Street cityscape and a video vault containing digital copies of more than 40,000 film and TV titles -- which fortunately also were stored elsewhere on film negatives and masters.

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