At 3:59 a.m. on an October morning, a report of a fire was called in. The address was 30 Rockefeller Plaza. This 70-story office building is home to NBC television.

It took 320 firefighters four hours to bring the fire under control. 

Five civilians and 12 firefighters were injured. Fire officials closed the lowest 15 floors occupied by NBC for the entire day. This evacuation displaced over 2,000 NBC workers and hundreds of others employed in the building. The “Today Show” was broadcast from the sidewalk. Floors 16 through 70 were closed for part of the day. Extensive damage occurred to the electrical equipment in the building. Much of the damage was from smoke and water. 

The fire’s origin was in an electrical room on the 5^th floor where electrical service entered the building and was distributed. The cabling was in open cable supports. What happened was that over the years, as additional cabling was added to meet growing demand for electrical power in the building, it was jammed into these cable supports.  The cables were squeezed under the girders in one spot. The cables were so close together that they didn’t have any room to ventilate. Over time, the insulation deteriorated until it led to electrical arcing and subsequently the fire.

The total loss was over $20 million.