Disneyland Fantasmic Dragon Engulfed in Flames

[TP2000]

The Who, in 1979. (I remember because of the "WKRP" episode.) But you don't have to look that far back.

Oh, gosh, that was it! The Who. What am I thinking of with The Rolling Stones? I know there was a tragedy at one of their concerts too. Maybe earlier.

I am unfamiliar with the AstroWorld deaths, but I do remember the Cincinnati tragedy being a very big deal. It resulted in law changes in Ohio as I remember, and concern about similar outdoor events.

I do wonder what the strategy is for that Fantasmic! viewing area. I can't be the only one to have had a fleeting thought of uneasiness while packed in there shoulder to shoulder with no visible exit path waiting for the show to start. Can I?

 

[Disney Irish]

Oh, gosh, that was it! The Who. What am I thinking of with The Rolling Stones? I know there was a tragedy at one of their concerts too. Maybe earlier.

You're thinking of the Altamont concert incident with the Hells Angels.

 

[wtyy21]

Someone wrote a parody poem about Murphy's demise.

 

[THEMEPARKPIONEER]

What I don’t understand is why they couldn’t shut the gas off. A show with cast members and guests that could have been allot worse. You see the gas spewing out and it’s obvious the line was broken and some affect could easily set it off. After all these years you think they’d learn something.

 

[Vinnie Mac]

Was joking about this earlier but this situation is kind of sad. Disneyland pretty much lost an icon of the park.

I wanted the WDW Fantasmic to be better than the Disneyland Fantasmic but NOT like this!

 

[Vinnie Mac]

As much as I love the original Fantasmic, if this meant the end of the show at Disneyland, I would be ok with that. The new show lacks the charm of the original and the crowds it brings to Frontierland and NOS are just miserable. Sucks to lose such a cool animatronic, but I wouldn’t mind if Fantasmic never returned.

Anyway, though, this really does highlight the horrible maintenance at the parks right now. I’m grateful nobody was hurt, but I wonder how long until somebody is.

Fantasmic being retired would be as bad as Illuminations: Reflection of Earth being retired . The grief from the theme park community may actually be slightly worse.

 

[lazyboy97o]

What I don’t understand is why they couldn’t shut the gas off. A show with cast members and guests that could have been allot worse. You see the gas spewing out and it’s obvious the line was broken and some affect could easily set it off. After all these years you think they’d learn something.

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.

 

[gerarar]

Malificient survives for another night...then gets slayed by Mickey (on the other coast)..

 

[Disney Analyst]

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.

I’m sure it’s the hydraulic fluids pouring out.

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

Malificient survives for another night...then gets slayed by Mickey (on the other coast)..
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There's a video on Twitter showing that the river lit up in fire without the "dragon breathing fire" effect. So contrary to earlier reporting, they did in fact turn off the dragon's fire effect at WDW.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

It'll never happen, but my dream reaction scenario is dueling night parades!
"Sorry about Fantasmic, we know that is unmagical, but how about MSEP at Disneyland and PTN at DCA??"

I can dream, anyway.

Save one for Magic Kingdom!

 

[gerarar]

There's a video on Twitter showing that the river lit up in fire without the "dragon breathing fire" effect. So contrary to earlier reporting, they did in fact turn off the dragon's fire effect at WDW.

The dragon's mouth has been broken for about a month now, so the fire effect has been off long before the incident at DL last night.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Probably the clearest video I’ve seen of the events right after it all kicked off.





It seems the fire crew that are on the island during the show just started spraying stuff down around the dragon, before leaving the stage. It seems far too dangerous to get close to without the full fire department present and big hoses.

 

[gerarar]

Probably the clearest video I’ve seen of the events right after it all kicked off.





It seems the fire crew that are on the island during the show just started spraying stuff down around the dragon, before leaving the stage. It seems far too dangerous to get close to without the full fire department present and big hoses.

Thank goodness the cabin didn't catch fire. There were a lot of embers flying and falling on the cabin during the entirity of the video.

We could see in the last couple mins that they're dousing the cabin with water, so they were definitely preventing the fire from spreading instead of putting it out, at least until the Anaheim FD gets there. Sadly the flames were too much to fight the fire actively spreading on the stage-floor.

 

[Disone]

How many of those incidents involved a $10 million company asset becoming worthless?

So the 10 million company asset is worth more than list of life? Where are you going with this?

A monorail train is way more than 10 million and Walt Disney World lost two of them for a while, and a life forever.

I'm not sure where you're going with this.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

Strange how far we've come... There was a time when Disney actually added something incredibly impressive (albeit unreliable) to their nighttime spectaculars. It seems that would never happen now.

And now it's all going down in flames. Symbolic. There will not be another Murphy the dragon for a very long time. And the era of exciting and creative Disney Parks additions sadly seems to be going down in flames as well.

 

[Disone]

There's a video on Twitter showing that the river lit up in fire without the "dragon breathing fire" effect. So contrary to earlier reporting, they did in fact turn off the dragon's fire effect at WDW.

If you follow the return of fantasmic thread on here it has been often noted that the dragon did not breathe it's fire. It's very hit or miss at Walt Disney World fantasmic.

They probably shut off but with Hollywood studios track record it could have just been another miss night.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

If you follow the return of fantasmic thread on here it has been often noted that the dragon did not breathe it's fire. It's very hit or miss at Walt Disney World fantasmic.

They probably shut off but with Hollywood studios track record it could have just been another miss night.

Even when the fire-breathing worked at DHS, it was really nothing like the Murphy fire-breathing. It looked more like a firecracker or a flaming marshmallow being launched out of the mouth. At DL, it was like a flamethrower.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Chile, these jokes ain’t hittin.’ At all.

 

[shambolicdefending]

If anything, it might be time to seriously reconsider how to evacuate the 2,000+ people along the lower tier of the Fantastmic! viewing area.

There are inherent risks with being in a crowded area that are impossible to fully mitigate. The vast majority of the risk comes from scenarios where crowds can become suddenly unruly or panicked. In those types of situations the best evacuation plan conceivable becomes completely worthless in an instant.

A few people have commented about the "disturbing" reaction of some of the guests. I think any safety expert would be quite happy to see people joking and being light-hearted in that situation, because the alternative is far more dangerous than an isolated fire across a wide body of water. An anxious, frenzied crowd could get people hurt or killed in a matter of seconds, and there's nothing anybody on planet Earth could do to stop it.