Theme Park Insider

Universal fire blamed on work crew

By Robert Niles
Published: June 2, 2008 at 8:03 PM
A Reuters report cites Los Angeles County Fire officials who are blaming a Universal work crew for the fire that destroyed the King Kong attraction and burned a section of the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot Sunday.

An investigation revealed the fire was touched off by three members of a studio work crew who had been using a blow torch to apply asphalt shingles to the roof of a building facade.

They finished their work at about 3 a.m. and stood watch for an hour, according to company policy. Seeing no signs of a fire, they left the scene for a break, but a security guard in the vicinity noticed flames about 45 minutes later and called the fire department.

From the report, I still wonder what happened between 3 am and 4:45. Anyway, the park reopened today, as promised, as did the Studio Tour, which drove by some of the affected areas.

Readers' Opinions

From Bradley Robertson on June 3, 2008 at 7:26 AM
Sounds completely accidental. Also sounds like there were possibly embers in an area that the work crew couldn't see.
From Brandon Mendoza on June 3, 2008 at 8:46 AM
Accidents do happen, but sadly, with this much property loss someone has to take the blame. The crew will be held accountable for it, and I'm sure they'll have a hard time getting work in the same field. It's not like they can omit that they worked at USH on their resumes.

This fire is definitely bad news, but at the very least, no one was killed or critically injured.

I'm not into Conspiracy Theories, but I've seen and heard people trying to claim that it's some big wig's idea of publicity to get more attendance while getting rid of old attractions. I think it's absurd.

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