A little bit of fake history was destroyed as the New York and New England stages on the Universal Studios Hollywood lot went up in flames yesterday. The fire began for unknown reasons and took over 50 firefighters to control and injured nine firefighters in the process. It spread through the back-lots and set off two explosions when the fire reached a couple of propane tanks. As of right now they don’t know who and/or what caused the fire.
The blaze erupted at 4:45 a.m. on New York Street — a location that has played host to scenes for such films as “Batman and Robin” and “Austin Powers.”
The flames churned through the open-air wood and plastic construction and to the adjacent sets, incinerating the 30-foot animatronic King Kong and damaging Courthouse Square, which played a prominent role in “Back to the Future,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Inherit the Wind.”
The park had to be shut down yesterday, but will reopen today at 10 a.m. as investigators try to find out what started the fire. One possible cause could be the lack of water pressure in the park’s sprinkler system and fire hydrants.
“That’s definitely something we are going to look into: was it adequate enough, the possibility of increasing water pressure for that part of the lot, of adding sprinklers to the system,” Brown said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and county Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman have ordered an inquiry into whether the lack of water pressure in Universal’s fire protection system allowed the blaze to get out of control at the world-famous studio and theme park.
“The water came out of hoses anemically,” Yaroslavsky said. “The water-pressure issue is going to be the postmortem issue of this fire.”
Some firefighters on the scene could get only a 10-foot spray from park hydrants and were unable to reach the vaulting flames.
Firefighters had to resort to pumping water from the “Jaws” attraction and other places to save the day. Needless to say, the tour ride at Universal will never be the same. Even if (or should I say when) they rebuild the sets, it just won’t be the same. Part of the fun was knowing that your favorite films were shot on that actual set. Oh well, hopefully Jaws doesn’t mind the drought and he’ll be back soon, with vengeance!
Quotes and photo by the LATimes.comÂ
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1 Universal Studios Makes History out of Tragedy | LA.CityZine.com - Los Angeles // Jun 3, 2008 at 3:31 pm
[...] Sunday, parts of the Universal Studios back-lot were burnt down in a fire caused by unknown reasons. Yesterday they re-opened the part and [...]
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