Disneyland Fantasmic Dragon Engulfed in Flames

[CaptinEO]

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.

-

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.

 

[chadwpalm]

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.

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]

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?

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]

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.

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.

 

[shambolicdefending]

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.

We could go back and forth on this with each other for a few dozen messages. But, I'm quite certain we'd both end up right back where we started.

I watched the videos and concluded that Disney's response was good. You watched them and concluded otherwise. I read the points you made to that effect and didn't agree with them. That's that.

You're not going to change my mind. I'm not going to change yours (nor do I especially care to). So I prefer to save the time and keystrokes and just move along.

 

[DrAlice]

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.

Thank you for this. This makes me feel a little better about the evacuation part of the situation.

Although, I do still question what fire suppression plans they had in place for the stage itself. It's pretty shocking to see that a prop that is designed to shoot fire, did not have some system to extinguish itself, in case it shoots itself on fire. Maybe they do and that system failed. I suspect we'll never know.

I'm glad there were only minor injuries and that the stage and TSI trees did not go up in flames.

 

[flynnibus]

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.

Thx for the witness account - doesn't really dispute what was said though. You're describing things from a customer perspective. What seems like 'really fast' to you is not the same context or expectation for the person working the professional role on the other side of things.

There are literally people whose job it is to be watching the effects and instigate protocols when the situation triggers them.

"They weren't expecting this to happen" is not a defense when dealing with safety protocols of hazardous materials and effects.

The 'general announcement' they made was a generic one about the show not proceeding - not one specific to the crowd management topic at hand.

The points raised were very specific for a purpose - not 'disney is bad!' generalizations.

 

[CaptinEO]

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!!!!!

You can't have sprinklers covering every inch of a giant property, unless you want giant pipes or roofs covering every part of Disneyland.

I think having onsite fire people was a smart idea and it clearly worked.

 

[MisterPenguin]

 

[MisterPenguin]

you have a hard time preventing a stampede scenario anywhere because the issue is the people more than anything. They can stampede in a wide open courtyard.

 

[Phroobar]

The undesirables lit a bonfire in protest over the new DVC lounge in Tomorrowland?

 

[MisterPenguin]

An accident happened, they resolved it

If there was a problem, yo, they'll solve it.

 

[chadwpalm]

Thank you for this. This makes me feel a little better about the evacuation part of the situation.

Although, I do still question what fire suppression plans they had in place for the stage itself. It's pretty shocking to see that a prop that is designed to shoot fire, did not have some system to extinguish itself, in case it shoots itself on fire. Maybe they do and that system failed. I suspect we'll never know.

I'm glad there were only minor injuries and that the stage and TSI trees did not go up in flames.

TSI is grandfathered into the park. It was built before Fantasmic! existed. There are no fire hydrants on the island due to that and it would be a major undertaking and destruction of the riverbed to install one. This incident will improve upon this in some way or another. Either putting in a water system to deal with this or rebuild the dragon with a more fire retardant material.

 

[Parteecia]

Do you think the global fire suspension is just performative theater? Pretend they're double checking?

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

TSI is grandfathered into the park. It was built before Fantasmic! existed. There are no fire hydrants on the island due to that and it would be a major undertaking and destruction of the riverbed to install one. This incident will improve upon this in some way or another. Either putting in a water system to deal with this or rebuild the dragon with a more fire retardant material.

My guess is no new dragon for the foreseeable future. If anything, we'll see the return of the head on a stick. Disney has too much on their plate right now to worry about replacing a dragon that took several tries to get right in the first place.

Do you think the global fire suspension is just performative theater? Pretend they're double checking?

I think it's probably 70% performative theater and 30% "oh we should probably actually make sure all is actually ok."

 

[lazyboy97o]

Just as a sort of reference, the model building codes used throughout the US still very much allow buildings to be built without fire sprinklers. They’re required more and more but still not for everything. Amphitheaters, due to being outdoors, are also exempt from a number of requirements that would be applied to an enclosed theater. A 30’ separation is also the range where you typically do not have to consider any sort of fire separation between buildings.

 

[gerarar]

Some thoughts I had:

• Additional pyro launchers was installed on the head in 2017 when F! 2.0 debuted. This of course required addional wires, tubes, electric, etc. to be placed on the head. Dragon pyro looked to be upgraded with the 2017 update, so was the "redesign"/refurbishment of the head done with Garner Holt's help since they originally created, designed, and built the dragon AA? If not, could things have been overlooked by Disney?
• The dragon's fire-breathing was inoperable for a few months last year but then was fixed. It still had problems time to time but maybe something was missed here.
• The show E-stopped after Mickey went down his lift. Perhaps they wanted the CM out of there before stopping the show otherwise it would be up to the CM in their costume which has limited visiblity to find their way off the stage and to backstage in the dark. Another way is for a stagehand to go on-stage and guide Mickey off. Both of these seem dangerous situations, so maybe sending Mickey down his lift was the best option.

 

[flynnibus]

TSI is grandfathered into the park. It was built before Fantasmic! existed. There are no fire hydrants on the island due to that and it would be a major undertaking and destruction of the riverbed to install one. This incident will improve upon this in some way or another. Either putting in a water system to deal with this or rebuild the dragon with a more fire retardant material.

You don't need to go under the riverbed - fixed pipe could be installed above ground. The issue is more the guide rail, which maybe they would need to go under. (maybe total clearance is an issue - but less likely.. standpipe installs are commonly 4"). Or, you could install a self-contained on-demand system on the island that reused the river water itself as a source.

I don't think the dragon's skin is all that much of a concern here, unless they found it failed in some toxic manner. It's never going to be a fire containment system in itself. Even if the structure is designed to contain a fire to just a portion of the overall structure it is only going to be designed for a time limit. I think they would be more concerned with the safety responses for the effects and powered systems in the dragon. Since clearly they were unable to fully dump or block the flammable fluids from the structure after the fire had started.

 

[flynnibus]

The show E-stopped after Mickey went down his lift. Perhaps they wanted the CM out of there before stopping the show otherwise it would be up to the CM in their costume which has limited visiblity to find their way off the stage and to backstage in the dark. Another way is for a stagehand to go on-stage and guide Mickey off. Both of these seem dangerous situations, so maybe sending Mickey down his lift was the best option.

I thought of this too... since I don't know if the performers are radio linked or not. But given the scenario where its likely to be a large number of performers that are not radio-linked, one should have protocols where performance can visually ID a cue or brute force also have audio cues to trigger pre-determined safety procedures.

When it comes to safety, they can override the show w/o concern. It's a training and protocol topic. Again, even if they didn't do it directly for their effects handling, I'd be kinda suprised if Disney hasn't incorporated such emergency protocols in response to Active Shooter situations or other issues (even earthquake, etc) in response to sad events over recent years.

 

[Supreme Leader]

Some thoughts I had:

• Additional pyro launchers was installed on the head in 2017 when F! 2.0 debuted. This of course required addional wires, tubes, electric, etc. to be placed on the head. Was the "redesign" of the head done with Garner Holt's help since they originally created, designed, and built the dragon AA? If not, could things have been overlooked by Disney?

The pyro launchers in the head have been there since the dragon debuted in 2009.