Because the official narrative rarely tells the whole story.
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
From the fire to the order that saved the backup paper
11 DAYS
FIRE REPORTED, JULY 12, 1973  →  FPMR B-39 ISSUED, JULY 23, 1973
RAY COULTER THE GUIDE
A 1973 fire burned up to 18 million military files in St. Louis, and the records center still rebuilds them
Firefighters work the southeast corner of the burning National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, July 13, 1973
Firefighters at the southeast corner of Building 100, National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, July 13, 1973 (Photo: National Archives, NAID 293518048)
My father went to war in 1943, and his Army file burned in 1973.
I learned that from the inside. For 26 years I pulled other men’s service files at the records center outside St. Louis, and his folder had gone to ash long before my first day.
My wife Marilyn says I talk about that fire like it happened last week. She has a point… it was 53 years ago this July.
Once a month I set the stories down and hand you a tool instead. This one is the tool I used every working day: how to get a service file out of St. Louis, burned or not.
Here is the limit, up front. The center can’t hand back paper that burned. It rebuilds the outline of a man’s service from other paper, and by its own 2023 count it triages more than 30,000 fire-affected files a year.
Start with a test of what St. Louis can still use.
Which of these can rebuild a burned file?
Say your father’s Army folder burned in 1973. Which of these papers can the records center use to rebuild his service?
His draft registration card from the Selective Service System
A claim file he opened with the Veterans Administration
His name on an Adjutant General’s Office pay voucher that lists other men too
The X-ray the Army took when he went in, or the one when he came out
Papers his home state kept on him after the war
Answer at the bottom of this letter.
“In all, it took the participation of 42 fire districts to combat the disastrous blaze.”
NATIONAL ARCHIVES, THE 1973 FIRE, NATIONAL PERSONNEL RECORDS CENTER
The fire, by the government’s count
Document
“The 1973 Fire, National Personnel Records Center”
Reported
Shortly after midnight, July 12, 1973
Building
9700 Page Boulevard, St. Louis, as filed
Burned
About 16 to 18 million service files
Army
Discharged November 1, 1912 to January 1, 1960. About 80% lost
Air Force
Discharged September 25, 1947 to January 1, 1964, names after Hubbard, James E. About 75% lost
Fought by
42 fire districts
Declared out
July 16, 1973
Cause
Undetermined, per the National Archives
Recovered
About 6.5 million burned and wet files
Those are the losses. Here is the work, in four steps.
Step one: find his side of the 62-year line
The National Archives opens a service file to the public 62 years after the man left the service.
Its own page draws that line at 1963. The page was reviewed on January 6, 2026, and it still says the current year is 2025.
By the page’s own arithmetic, this year’s line is 1964. If your man got out in 1964, ask St. Louis which side his file sits on before you fill out a form.
A file from 1963 or earlier is archival and open to anyone, though the Archives can charge for copies. Files after that open in full to the veteran and his next of kin.
Step two: check that you count as next of kin
The Archives names them: a widow or widower who has not remarried, a son, a daughter, a father, a mother, a brother or a sister.
You’ll need proof he died. A death certificate works, and so does a letter from the funeral home or a printed obituary.
My brother Denny died in 2021, so I count for his. I asked, and his file came back as unit codes and dates from 1968.
The fire missed his folder by nine years. Army losses stop at men discharged before 1960, and Denny came home in 1969.
Step three: send Standard Form 180
The form is the SF-180, Request About Military Records. Mail it to the National Personnel Records Center, 1 Archives Drive, St. Louis, MO 63138, or fax it to 314-801-9195.
A veteran or next of kin can also file online through eVetRecs.
Sign it and date it. The Archives wants every request signed within the last year.
Give his full name as he used it in the service, his service number, his branch, his dates of service, and the date and place he was born.
If the fire touched his file, add three more lines: where he was discharged, his last unit, and where he went in. A technician in St. Louis will work from those three lines.
Send copies of his papers and keep the originals. The Archives does not return what you mail in.
Step four: if it burned, let them rebuild it
A burned file gets rebuilt from the five kinds of paper in the quiz above, plus the Army and Air Force morning reports that staff saved from the burning building.
In April 1974 the center opened the R registry, R for reconstructed. Every rebuilt file has gone there since.
A rebuild takes longer, and the Archives says so on its request page. For a funeral or a surgery, write that in the comments on eVetRecs or on the purpose line of the form, then fax it to 314-801-0764.
The rebuilding started before the fire was out, and the clock on it has run 53 years.
53 years of rebuilding, in order
July 12, 1973: A fire is reported shortly after midnight at the records building in St. Louis. Crews reach the sixth floor, then pull out at 3:15 a.m.
July 16, 1973: The local fire department calls the fire officially out.
July 23, 1973: FPMR B-39 halts federal agencies from disposing of records that could document military service.
April 1974: The center opens the R registry for reconstructed files.
2004: The fire-affected records become part of the National Archives’ permanent holdings.
2023: The National Archives at St. Louis reports it triages more than 30,000 fire-affected records a year.
January 6, 2026: The archival access page is reviewed. It still reads 2025 and draws the line at 1963.
Ray’s note
The government marks the edge of the Air Force loss with a man’s name: Hubbard, James E. I filed by last name for 26 years. The fire hit those Air Force files the same way, Hubbard to Z.
Line of the Day
“Therefore, a complete listing of the records that were lost is not available.”
National Archives, “The 1973 Fire, National Personnel Records Center”
archives.gov/personnel-records-center/fire-1973, page reviewed May 28, 2025
The answer
All five. The Archives’ own page on the fire lists every one of them: VA claims files, state records, Multiple Name Pay Vouchers from the Adjutant General’s Office, Selective Service registration records, and entrance and separation X-rays. Staff also carried more than 100,000 reels of Army and Air Force morning reports out of the building before the last flames were out.
Have you asked St. Louis for a family member’s file?
Tap the one that fits. It opens a short letter to the desk.
One tap, no login. Your answer goes to the desk and stays there.
Hit reply and tell me whose file you’re chasing, his branch, and the year he got out. That year tells you which side of 62 years you’re standing on.
The request desk
Want a file pulled that you can’t reach yourself? Name the agency and the year, and I’ll go after the paper.
NAME A FILE →
What I still cannot find
Here is what the fire still keeps from you, by the Archives’ own account.
▪  What started it. The National Archives says investigators were never able to determine the source of the 1973 fire.
▪  A full list of the burned folders. With no index made before July 1973, St. Louis can’t tell you ahead of time whether your man’s folder burned.
▪  Every file after 1963. Under the 62-year rule those stay closed to the public, open to the veteran, his next of kin, or a person they authorize in writing.
▪  The papers out on loan. Millions of documents sat with the Veterans Administration when the fire hit in 1973, so a missing page may live in a VA claims folder instead.
My father’s file sits in the R registry now, built out of his pay records. It is thin, and it is his.
Coulter comes before Hubbard in the alphabet. That would have spared his folder if he had flown for the Air Force.
He was Army, and the Army loss has no name on its edge.
Whichever side of Hubbard your man’s name falls on, start with the form.
Talk tomorrow,
Ray
Further Reading:
“A fire was reported at NPRC’s military personnel records building.” The Archives’ own account of the fire, the losses and the rebuild: The 1973 Fire, National Personnel Records Center.
“Each request must be signed and dated.” The form, the address, the fax numbers and the next-of-kin rules on one page: Access to Official Military Personnel Files.
“This is a rolling date.” The 62-year rule, with the line still drawn at 1963: OMPF, Archival Holdings.
“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both.”
JAMES MADISON, LETTER TO W. T. BARRY, AUGUST 4, 1822

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