All those old exposition buildings are nothing but fire traps.  I go to bed every night afraid that I will wake up in the morning to see the park buildings wiped out and with them collections of materials that could not be replaced for less than $1,000,000 [and] several years of hard work. –Joseph W. Sefton, Jr., president, Natural History Museum.

The story of a disaster in Balboa Park: the Civic Auditorium Fire.

The Civic Auditorium was the former Southern California Counties Building, built for the Panama-California Exposition of 1915.