Another major fire has struck Germany's Europa-Park, leading to the evacuation of the entire theme park today.
Smoke towered over the park and was visible for miles after the blaze started just before 5pm local time. Park officials ordered the evacuation soon after, with firefighters bringing the fire under control within about 90 minutes.
The fire appears to have started in the Spain section of the park, next to Austria. There are no initial reports of injuries to visitors or park personnel, nor word yet on damage to attractions. (*See update below.)
German tabloid Bild has photos and video from visitors inside the park.
In 2018, fire destroyed the Pirates in Batavia dark ride and surrounding area inside Europa-Park. The park then rebuilt the attraction. Europa-Park announced on its social media that the park will reopen to guests tomorrow.
(BTW, we had been planning to run a trip report and visitors guide to Europa-Park today, but I am delaying that post until we get more information from the park about the extent of today's fire.)
Update: According to the park, two firefighters suffered "slight" injuries while responding.
In addition, the park stated, "According to the current state of knowledge, the following attractions will remain closed for the time being: Panoramabahn, Alpenexpress Enzian, Alpenexpress Coastiality, Tiroler Wildwasserbahn, Yomis-Magic World of Diamonds as well as the shops Bazar Español and Edelsteingrotte."
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So much unfortunate.
Fire prevention is not easy, but since long, compartimentation of essential fire accident sensible technical installations, is almost never done, all over the industry (amusement industry or not).
It is true : fire prevention building codes, concentrate on rescueing people. That is good in itself. (..although quite a lot of those regulations are too bureaucratic, and loose feeling with the real reality, wich should be studied on the spot, with expertise from human viewpoint, not the blind number-work from the regulations...)
When it comes to the (well known) potental causes to start a fire, it mostly boils down to technical installation, big and small, where there are many switches, and heat sources like motors. Keeping all essential technical installations OUT of the show-zones/ public-zones should be the first step. Then, providing those zones with Rf 2h compartments, free escape of heat/smoke just for those compartments, fully automatic switch off of power, and possibly fast automatic fire extinguishers right on top of the installations.
Believe it or not, these precautions are seldom made. (Every heavy duty motor, and every main swichboard should have an automatic fire extinguisher on top... there exist models that are even ridiculously cheap, while effective ! ... Just showing one common model is €50 per piece... If you need 50 of those to saveguard all tech installations in an attraction, this comes to a €2500 investment, for an attraction costing 20 miljons !?? Peanuts. Yet : almost nowhere you will see it....
(Saying this, from my background as an architect)