Disneyland Fantasmic Dragon Engulfed in Flames

[DrAlice]

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.

Wait... they built a "burning settler's cabin" on the island without fire hydrants? huh. It's crazy to think about how much codes have changed in a few decades.

 

[Disone]

4/28 reopening in B mode??? Color me surprised but this matching someone who said that the lift for the dragon still worked and they lowered it after the fire was extinguished but the head still stuck out because normally the dragon fold up to firing the pit.

 

[Disney Analyst]

4/28 reopening in B mode??? Color me surprised but this matching someone who said that the lift for the dragon still worked and they lowered it after the fire was extinguished but the head still stuck out because normally the dragon fold up to firing the pit.

Yeah, that was me!

I assume the lift itself is a bit metal plate, so it likely contained the fire to the surface of the stage. Which is why it was able to be lowered down to hide most the damaged body while they work on removing the dragon.

 

[wtyy21]

If true, i would be amazing fast recovery to see the show in B-Mode. However, it still subject to change pending the result of investigation of Murphy fire.

 

[flynnibus]

Just sitting here waiting for you to tell me it's not.

Yawwwwnnn... Would you like a pillow for your seat too?

 

[Sailor310]

The show is surrounded by water. How much would it have cost Disney to install 4 or 5 jet pumps in the water with nozzels pointed right at the dragon? Flick an emergecy switch and the stage is blasted with an unlimited supply of water.

That would have been a VERY cheap solutuon that would have stopped this in seconds...and probably would have

 

[THEMEPARKPIONEER]

These types of effects use a fuel source like propane or natural gas, and while they’re stored as a liquid their boiling point is so low that they would not pour out like that. What is seen is some other fluid, not the fuel source.

Must have been the water trailing that fuel source, also pr why they gave up

 

[Sailor310]

Back to evacuations, if they directed right side of the crowd to Frontierland, those in back out through Adventureland, those on the left out towards Splash Mountain, it seems like they could have gotten folks clear pretty quickly.
Also, I'm happy but surprised some of the building didn't burn.

Also 2, I'm surprised that the hydraulic fluid burned so fiercely-if it was the hydraulic fluid. I'm going back and looking at flammability and flash points of hydraulic fluids. In the 80s I worked on developing, building and installing ground hydraulic pumping units to service the space shuttle at the launch pad the AF was building at Vandenberg AFB- 2 hours north of LA. We finished most of it, but never launched a shuttle there. Anyway, as I remember, we hardly ever talked about fire being an issue. We had three units in the OMCF- a big hanger for processing the orbiter and five units in the launch pad to service the orbiter and Solid Rocket Boosters. I don't remember us adding any additional fire sensing/suppression gear for the hydraulic units. It could be that there was plenty of protection already installed in the facilities, but after watching Murphy burn, I'm surprised that we didn't worry about fire more.

 

[chadwpalm]

Yawwwwnnn... Would you like a pillow for your seat too?

That would be lovely, thanks!

My point is that you spent however many posts trying to convince people that Disney did a poor job of handling the situation, then I come in and post first-hand experience and you double down on your rhetoric.

There's probably what.......3000+ people tightly packed around the River outnumbering CMs 100 to 1 and those CMs doing their best to both keep calm and direct people that want to stand around and film out of the area to me was commendable. Every security guard in the park was called over to assist and get people out of there so the fire department can get in without incident. For there to be no injuries and only minimal damage to the stage I believe the CMs and the fire department did a great job in this situation.

If you want to believe otherwise that's your prerogative, but as someone who was there I feel I can share a much better perspective than what you only have seen through phone camera lenses. Your idea of how long it should have taken to get the fire out has no bearing on the reality of the situation.

 

[chadwpalm]

Must have been the water trailing that fuel source, also pr why they gave up

I've speculated that it could also have been melted material (latex, rubber, plastic or whatever he's made of) that pooled up in his mouth and overflowed out at some point.

 

[gerarar]

 

[Parteecia]

Electric flames! Lol!

I guess I should finally buy the Murphy sweatshirt that I've been eyeing for a few years.

 

[SuddenStorm]

What's crazy is stuff like this doesn't just happen. This was 100% a maintenance issue that could have been prevented and never should have happened.

Which begs the question- has Disney changed their preventative maintenance/inspections since covid?

We've seen decreased ride reliability and show conditions across the resort suffer- not to mention flooding the small world control area and the fire at the NOS train station last year. But now, the maintenance mishaps have crossed into 'serious safety concern' territory.

 

[Figments Friend]

So I have spent some time looking over a couple different video clips of the point of the show right before the fire started.
Some notable observations :

The last flame Maleficent shoots from her mouth to ‘light’ the water on fire was not a full flame and was not at full strength.
It was mostly just spray, with a weakened small fire ball.
Not the norm.

Soon afterwards, you can plainly see liquid dripping steadily from the mouth…right at the point of the show when the dragon turns to look down at Mickey.
The liquid bleeding turns into an obvious shower and it is literally pouring out from under the head and jaw.
Why no one from the control deck saw this should be questioned.

Right after this point , when the pyro would fire from the head as Mickey ‘shoots’ her with his magic, the head ignites in a small flame and then quickly grows.
So it looks to me like a hydraulic line burst and the ignition to set off the pyro sparked the fire.

I’m no expert…but the liquid pouring out of the underside of the head is very obvious right after that final shooting flame from the mouth.
If someone noticed this in time before the pyro ignition, this might have not happened.

-

 

[PiratesMansion]

What's crazy is stuff like this doesn't just happen. This was 100% a maintenance issue that could have been prevented and never should have happened.

Which begs the question- has Disney changed their preventative maintenance/inspections since covid?

We've seen decreased ride reliability and show conditions across the resort suffer- not to mention flooding the small world control area and the fire at the NOS train station last year. But now, the maintenance mishaps have crossed into 'serious safety concern' territory.

I imagine it's less that they changed standards and more that staffing has continually been an issue. From my perspective, this incident aside, from afar it was looking like the park finally had its act more or less together, with proper refurbs happening, almost everything back finally, and so on. It's certainly possible that in their attempt to just keep the place functioning as best they could with the crews they had, things were missed or overlooked that wouldn't ordinarily have been so..

Are bad show conditions still continuing? I haven't heard the complaints this year as I did last year, which is part of the reason I had concluded that overall things were getting better.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Disneyland fans. Typical.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

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.

It was contained to the dragon, it was controlled.

This is how the fire department fights most structure fires, they prevent them from spreading until they reach a point they can be put out.

The internal skeleton is steel and can survive fire for hours so there was no need to put anyone at risk to put the dragon out quickly, I suspect letting the skin burn while protecting the surrounding area was the plan in case of fire, once the skin was gone there was nothing left to burn and it was probably very easy to put out.

I read a few articles on steel and fire yesterday and I’ll be very surprised if they can’t reuse the frame, steel can withstand thousands of degrees for a long time before deforming or losing its strength, hopefully they can just replace the hydraulics, lines, and skin and we’ll get Murphy back.

 

[flynnibus]

It was contained to the dragon, it was controlled.

This is how the fire department fights most structure fires, they prevent them from spreading until they reach a point they can be put out.

It was contained kinda by default more than their action by the looks of it

By the time any response is out there there’s nothing to save. Just let it burn out.

 

[flynnibus]

Anyone know if Cal OSHA would investigate a fire of this magnitude? Since no one was seriously injured it doesn’t seem to meet the basic reporting requirements.

 

[flynnibus]

What's crazy is stuff like this doesn't just happen. This was 100% a maintenance issue that could have been prevented and never should have happened.

Based on what? Seems pretty premature