Summary

Photograph of the burnt roof of the Silver Nitrate building at the Kodak Australasia factory in Abbotsford, after a fire swept through in July 1952. Firemen are in the process of extinguishing the fire, which burnt for 15 minutes.

On the same day as the fire, a flood about 12 feet high submerged the company's timber yard, coke storage and maintenance workshops, causing £2,000 of damage to the timber.

Kodak manufactured and distributed a wide range of photographic products to Australasia, such as film, paper, chemicals, cameras and miscellaneous equipment. Its client base included amateur and professional photographers, as well as specialist medical and graphic art professionals who used photography, x-ray and other imaging techniques.

This photograph is part of the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005, when the Melbourne manufacturing plant at Coburg closed down.

Description of Content

View of the roof of a burning building, with smoke coming from the roof. There is a fireman on the roof, positioned on the left edge of the roof and holding the end of a hose. To the right, on the ground there are two firemen in the lower right hand corner holding a hose near a ladder leaning against the roof. There are holes burnt out in the roof and debris scattered over the corrugated aluminium.

Physical Description

Black and white, silver gelatin photograph, printed on light weight paper, landscape format with a white border.

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