Earlier this month, on July 8, 2025, a fire broke out in the Museum of Jurassic Technology on Venice Boulevard. In the small hours of the morning, it gutted the museum’s gift shop and caused smoke damage on several exhibits, with lost revenues estimated to be around $75,000 until the doors reopen, possibly in August.
What happened, according to the museum’s creator and director, Lawrence Weschler, on his ‘Wondercabinet‘ [It was] “…around 11:30 at night, a whole array of fire alarms took to shrieking and David [Wilson] himself raced out of his humble abode out back and into a building already filling with smoke so thick he could barely see his hands extended right in front of him. Still he was somehow able to grab a couple [of] fire extinguishers as he stumbled toward the front of the building … where he encountered a ferocious column of flame lapping up the far street-facing corner wall on the opposite side from the doorway.”
Several neighbors jumped into the scene with multiple industrial-size fire extinguishers, and the flames were put down.
Seven fire engines arrived “within moments,” and the firemen spread through the building knocking down any remaining smoldering embers.
The cause of the fire wasn’t “immediately apparent,” but the lead investigator took David aside and congratulated him on the speed with which everyone had responded: “Another minute, just one more minute, and you’d likely have lost the whole building.”
The gift shop in the entry was was considered a total loss, and “much of the rest of the first floor, however, was limned in smoke damage—“as if a thin creamy brown liquid had been evenly poured over all the surfaces—the walls, the vitrines, the ceiling, the carpets, the eyepieces, everything.” Cleaning and repair will likely take weeks, huge fans churning away the entire while.
Contributions, always helpful, are now vital. Go to the museum’s website, or better yet to the museum giftshop (ironically, the shop continues to exist, completely unsullied, in digital form), where along the top bar you will find a link called “Donate.”
The museum does not expect to reopen till sometime in August.
Judith Martin-Straw
