How to properly dispose of nitrocellulose film?

I am affiliated to the fire service and I read material safety data sheets. Thus my statement was founded.

But as I said, the cooling concept fails from some package density on, which then may make a NC fire non-extinguishable.
And obviously there are most different storing situations, regarding absolute amount of material, package density, way of storing, chemical status of the material etc.

Your depot situation may not correspond to other situations where NC is stored.

In theory, cooling could stop combustion if you could cool it with a very low temperature fluid, but I've seen nitrate film fully submerged in 5 gallons of water continue to burn happily. I believe that is the source of the idea that if you catch it in the first few seconds you may be able to stop it and that point there may not be that much heat, and you may have a chance to cool it. Once its going, it will be very difficult because the combustion process releases oxygen so you can't smother the fire.

As an interesting aside, in the late 1800s pool/billiards became very popular, and they started making billiard balls out of nitrocellulose instead of ivory. This caused occasional small explosions when the balls contacted each other.

I've never projected nitrate film, but I have projected old acetate film, and it was VERY fragile. I don't know if it was age or just the normal state of acetate film. Newer films were printed on what I believe was a mylar base, and that was practically indestructible.

I would need to go dig up my old materials manual for exact values, as I haven't directly dealt with the stuff in years, but the use of CO2 suppression was approved for the mini rocket fuel cores where I used to work. They would have contained about 3 movie reels worth of nitrocellulose fuel for little sounding rockets. (Yay Science!) - The idea was not to smother the fire from oxygen, but rather to dump so much CO2 on that you limit heat production with the goal of keeping it from being hot enough that it could ignite other fuel sources, with a bit of hope towards maybe putting out the original core. High volume water was the stage-2 response if the CO2 failed or the fire was already too large to attempt stage-1 containment, but was considered non-ideal for stage one due to the secondary damage to the building and equipment from the water itself.

Do NOT attempt to rely on a small extinguisher, or to fight one of those fires without breathing gear.

But seriously, ask your friend to call hazmat. Safely addressing these sort of things is kind of the point of a fire department hazmat team!
And I would assume their tax dollars are going towards supporting their local fire department, so why not use the resources they're already paying for? I have never met a firefighter who wasn't very keen on being helpful and keeping people safe - That's kind of why people choose to become firefighters...

I just can't help thinking of all those old B&W silent movies shot on nitro... nobody wants to see silent pictures, so just throw 'em away
They have no value.

wy2l said:

I just can't help thinking of all those old B&W silent movies shot on nitro... nobody wants to see silent pictures, so just throw 'em away
They have no value.

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Nope. Throw them our way...

https://www.loc.gov/avconservation/

We still preserve film to film. I have graded/timed approximately 700 or so 35mm features in my career; everything from Thomas Edison's first camera experiments to "Dr. Strangelove".

Working on 80 silent features from Warner Brothers this quarter; making dupe negs and fine grain master positive protection masters.

We still have the camera original negative for "The Great Train Robbery" (1903) and its in very good condition; still can run through a printer.

Nope. Nitrate is loved here...

(all opinions expressed are my own, and not of my employer)

wy2l said:

I just can't help thinking of all those old B&W silent movies shot on nitro... nobody wants to see silent pictures, so just throw 'em away
They have no value.

Click to expand...

Silent movies are welcomed by many people. Moreover they actually were not shown in silent but accompanied by music, either from grammophone, by pianist, or several musicians, who either improvised or played apt pieces.

There even existed such as a cinema organ, which may be seen as combo of a church organ, an orchestrion and added by special effect features.

There still are special shows of silent movies with live music.

abruzzi said:

In theory, cooling could stop combustion if you could cool it with a very low temperature fluid, but I've seen nitrate film fully submerged in 5 gallons of water continue to burn happily.

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Burning submersed in water is different from burning in air whilst sprayed with water or flooded with running water. With the latter you continuously add cooler water, whereas in submersion there may come into existance a isolating layer of gases and there the only water convection will be formed as results from gases evading.

If you are interested in fire fighting you can see on the net successful extinguishing of car fires involving burning magnesium. A material whose fire actually should not be fought with water, as under this circumstances water gives off hydrogen gas wich itself violently catches fires. But with car fires there is advise by different agencies nevertheless to use water as it has been shown that water still can cool down the burning metal.
This also shows the complexity of fire fighting and that procedures depend on circumstances. What seems perfect under lab conditions may look different in a complex situation and one has to weigh pros and cons.