Brer Oswald
Well-Known Member
As far as I’m concerned, absolutely not. As far as the company’s concerned though?
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Disneyland Fantasmic Dragon Engulfed in Flames
- Thread starter SplashJacket
- Start date
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
To be honest I'm not seeing the outrage at their safety procedures. An accident happened, they resolved it, didn't cause a panic, and guests and staff are fine.
The fire wasn't going to magically jump across the 30 feet of water to to the guests. The real safety concern was to staff on Tom Sawyer Island.
Clearly they had fire personnel standing by who put out the fire.
The guests were safe and clearly didn't feel in danger.
Also to those saying guests attending are tasteless for making jokes in the situation, humor for many, myself included, is a defense/recovery mechanism. Sometimes after being scared and having an adrenaline rush a bit of humor can do wonders to calm things down.
The fire wasn't going to magically jump across the 30 feet of water to to the guests. The real safety concern was to staff on Tom Sawyer Island.
Clearly they had fire personnel standing by who put out the fire.
The guests were safe and clearly didn't feel in danger.
Also to those saying guests attending are tasteless for making jokes in the situation, humor for many, myself included, is a defense/recovery mechanism. Sometimes after being scared and having an adrenaline rush a bit of humor can do wonders to calm things down.
Not going after Safety but The Dragon wasn't put out real quick.....
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
It was put out within minutes.
After it lit up the whole thing!! Shouldn't there be Sprinklers on TSI for this????? I'm not knocking DL at all for guests safety, I'm just sad we lost the whole Dragon!!!!!
Andrew25
Well-Known Member
Apparently, every Disney fan is a fire safety expert, litigation expert, a consulting Imagineer, and has an economics degree from Harvard.
An accidental fire happened, whether or not it was due to a lack of maintenance we will never know, but it happened and they did the best they could do when a leak occurs.
This is the same company that knows the danger of fire and has protocols in place (e.g. Fantasyland sprinklers for fireworks at MK).
An accidental fire happened, whether or not it was due to a lack of maintenance we will never know, but it happened and they did the best they could do when a leak occurs.
This is the same company that knows the danger of fire and has protocols in place (e.g. Fantasyland sprinklers for fireworks at MK).
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
The firefighters made sure it didn’t spread - that’s their job and they did it correctly.
You're correct there!
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Where would these sprinklers have been located? Containing a fire is part of fire resistance design in buildings.
Disgruntled Walt
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Most of the full-length videos of the blaze last about 11 minutes before they are escorted away from the scene, and the fire isn't anywhere near done burning at the end. I would say the fire was burning far longer than anyone wanted. It sounds like Disney PR to say "The fire was put out within minutes."
It was an awful scene that lasted far longer than if they had been prepared for the likely possibility that a fire effect might malfunction and set other things on fire. Something should have been inspected that would have prevented this, I would think. I don't claim to be an expert, just seems like if they had inspected [insert whatever actually failed here], they might have prevented it. Maybe they didn't realize whatever [it] is needed to be inspected, so maybe it's no one's fault. But when dealing with fire, always ask the question: what can go wrong?
shambolicdefending
Well-Known Member
I think most of your points here are based on assumptions and conjecture and have no resemblance to the reality of what emergency response is really like, and what the key priorities would be in this kind of situation.I'm not ready to praise them in those elements.
1 - they clearly did not stop the show at the first signs of the pyro failure. The prop clearly failed with an uncontrolled burn emerging and the show continued (with the performer near by) for some time before they hit the show stop. Their monitoring and assessment of these effects or the safety officer decision here was delayed.
2 - they did not have an immediate response, and the 'containment' pitch is weak at best. They didn't deploy any resources that could have contained the fire. They were aided by the fact the prop is basically physically isolated and all the burning materials were heavy and dropping in it's own footprint. If there were embers flying off and going into the trees or the cabin... you think the guy with the little 50lb water fire extinguisher was gonna contain it?
3 - It's obvious they did not have a plan in place to self-address any sizable fire - likely only issues thought to be spot or performer issues. What happened here was not something they were prepared to address with onsite resources. It's debatable what scope they should be prepared to handle with onsite on standby resources vs a FD response... but the loss of a major show element like this with what is likely significant infrastructure damage would certainly cause anyone to reassess if their prior posture was the correct one to have.
4 - They did not have a planned response ready for the crowd - or at least didn't activate it - to ensure there wasn't a crowd panic. I would have expected a more direct crowd engagement when faced with something this dramatic to help keep the crowd calm and ensure a controlled movement of the crowd. I'm not saying anyone was in immediate danger from the fire, but you have to keep the mob from exploding on its own.
These points lead me to believe this accident was not one they had prepared for. It suggests they had probably too high of confidence in their safety systems and were not expecting to have to deal with a breach of those systems.
Some FOIA requests to see when the radio calls went out would be interesting
No clue.
flynnibus
Premium Member
By what clock is that?
I know it burned uncontrolled for more than 10mins.. and from I can tell so far more burned itself out rather than being put out. I've yet to see any footage of the fire dept response.. only the aftermath.
flynnibus
Premium Member
So you don't have a response? Got it.
Most of those responses are direct observations - no conjecture needed. The data is in the video.
shambolicdefending
Well-Known Member
Of course, I have a response. It's just not one that agrees with you. You are free to dismiss it as you wish. Just as we are all free to judge or dismiss your viewpoints as we see fit.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Again with the hand waving instead of actual content.
You're gonna dispute
- The time when the show was cutoff?
- The absence of a fire response onsite?
- The absence of a direct PA instructions to the crowd?
I'd love to hear what you watched.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
This dragon was definitely made at a better time for Disneyland. I also agree its replacement is doubtful to be nearly as amazing. Looking at the company's stock price and 4000 layoffs today, 10 million for a new dragon doesn't seem in the cards.This is very sad to hear about, and the imagery is downright disturbing and quite depressing for me personally.
Very, very sad that ‘Murphy’ was destroyed.
This was an amazing and integral part of the Show, and this unique element is likely gone forever now.
She was incredible to see in person.
Glad I saw her many, many times in action at the Park.
Seriously doubt Disneyland will pay to have a replacement built in a similar scale and complexity, but then again perhaps they might.
Have the sinking feeling…no….it will not happen….cuz’…$$$$$$$.
But I would like to think that they will do the right thing and REBUILD in some form.
Sorry, projections don’t cut it.
Of course modifications will be made, and things will be different.
Would be interesting to hear if Garner Holt has been contacted about this by Disney or if any preliminary talks have begun.
PM me is you don’t want to discuss publically.
This is just so sad…loved that dragon!
Other random thoughts at the news….
Also very disturbing to hear the behavior of people filming some of these video clips.
But each their own.
I also was wondering why there wasn’t more of an effort put into dowsing the flames.
There are some complications here to do so, sure, but just letting the thing flame up and just toast seems like this could have been far worse.
Folks commenting on the one CM with the fire extinguisher -
He may have been trying to keep the flames from spreading across the staging area.
If you watch some of the alternative angle video clips, he directs the extinguisher around the base of the dragon and then the chest area before finally moving away.
Mickey was definitely stunned, and I’m glad nobody was seriously injured.
This could have easily spiraled out of further control and turned into something much worse.
My thoughts are with the Cast who are probably going through some emotional turmoil right now.
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chadwpalm
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Were you there? I was, so listen up.
It all happened really fast and everyone, including the CM's were confused. As soon as it was apparent the head was on fire and not going to go out on its own they stopped the show and made a general announcement.
This is Disneyland, so naturally everyone wanted to film this and have the breaking news and footage. Almost immediately after the announcement the CMs started trying to herd people out of there. You can hear it on one of my videos. I was standing in front of the Golden Horseshoe thinking it was far enough back. People were being very stubborn and stuck around filming when they were being told to evacuate.
They were sending people from NOS to CC up to Galaxy's Edge and the people on the Frontierland side up toward GE/Fantasyland. They were desperate to clear the path. Why? Because they don't have a fire engine hiding on TSI. CM's on the island tried to hose it down to no avail. They weren't expecting this to happen. Sirens were blaring all over Anaheim. I know this because people at the hotel I was staying at told us the next morning that they heard sirens for several minutes. They needed to get fire engines in there to take care of this and the closest they can get to is the area in front of NOS. To do that they had to clear out the stubborn video/picture takers. I believe the CMs were genuinely concerned there could be a gas explosion.
Of course there wasn't any footage of the fire department response because they cleared everyone out before they can let them in (most likely from the CC gate).
Disney responded as quickly as they could and God bless the CM's that had to deal with the people during the mayhem. They performed admirably and thankfully nobody was hurt.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
I mean in hindsight we can always say what went wrong and how to fix it. The dragon has been around over a decade and is used every night. You can do regular preventative maintenance and still have an issue occur.
The fire team has to assess how to attack and control a fire. For example you do not use water on an electrical fire. They clearly did their jobs well.
I'm the last to be a Disney defender but in my opinion they did everything right for resolving this issue and the outcome is proof of it.
This is a far cry from the Toon Town 2019 fight and Disney's terrible non response.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
Thank you for the insider perspective. I'm so glad you were OK. I think people don't realize how different an emergency is in person vs in hindsight. Glad Disney CMs handled it well.
Screaming "evacuate" over a PA system is how you cause injury or even death from a large mob crush. This seemed handled gracefully without panic.