Today in Star Trek history: Filming halts on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock due to a fire on the Paramount lot

Mount Seleya, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

AUGUST 25, 2021 - 38 years ago today, in 1983, on the ninth day of filming on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, disaster struck! The day began normally enough for the cast and crew. Actors arrived early to get into costume, makeup artists applied ears and foreheads to the cast, the cameramen and director Leonard Nimoy set up for the first shot of the day and the Best Boys did their best.

At about 4:02 that afternoon, a Paramount employee spotted smoke and then flames coming from the Tattoo Shop on what was called “New York Street.” The street was where such films as Going My Way and Bells of St. Mary’s had been filmed decades earlier. It wasn’t long before a 90-foot high solid sheet of flame was moving from building to building, destroying iconic film sets along the way.

The only film in production at the time was Star Trek III. Stage 15 held the Vulcan set and, while Spock’s home world is hot, it looked like it was about to get a heck of a lot hotter! The set included polyurethane rocks that would have made fabulous fire fodder, and if they had gone up, filming would have been seriously delayed. Fortunately, Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, was on the scene.

Shatner’s schedule was tight. He had to be back to film his TV series, TJ Hooker, right after filming wrapped on Star Trek and he knew he couldn’t afford a delay. When the soundstage wall began to burn, he did what he had to do; what he always does; turned fire hoses into a fighting chance to keep filming. While he and others members of the cast and crew fought off the blaze at the soundstage, the professional firefighters dealt with the larger part of the inferno at New York Street. Ultimately the fire, described by on firefighter as a “million-square-foot bonfire,” was put out, but not without destroying the street where it had begun and any number of classic film sets in the process.

Later that year, United Press International reported that investigators determined the fire to have been set deliberately, but at the time they had no suspects or motive. To our knowledge, nobody was ever charged. And as for Star Trek III? Well, thanks to William Shatner’s quick actions, the Adventure Continued on schedule.