Holy crap! Kevin is not kidding.

I just looked out my window in the direction of Universal, and there is a GIANT column of smoke rising into the air. It looks bad. And it looks like more than just one stage.

Holy shit - stay safe LAistas!

ND's not working at Universal today, is he?

[eta: BBC has video]

ND's not working at Universal today, is he?

I imagine he's currently sleeping soundly in Pasadena, and if he was going anywhere today, it would be down to Costa Mesa.

The column of smoke coming from behind the hill is enormous. From here it looks like half the backlot is on fire. And those stages are crammed together like sardines.

I think the closest stage on the video is the old Serenity one, if I've placed it right.

Looking at the video, it's looking like they have lost at least half of the back lot -- the city/western/roman street exterior sets.

They've also lost several large buildings, one of which may be the King Kong ride (part of the back lot tour), and some prop buildings.

I'm so very glad this happened early on a Sunday morning. There was, in all probability, no filming going on this morning, and the park isn't really open yet.

I hope the firefighters stay safe.

This is going to be a big loss for Universal (though insurance will mitigate that somewhat). But there was at least one trailer that got totaled by the fire, and that's going to be a hard hit for whatever production was using it. And if there were trailers around, that means that there was something filming in the area that probably just lost their sets, and anything else that was in the path of the flames. That type of loss is usually death to a production.

I wonder how this is going to affect Halloween Horror Nights.

Huffington Post's story is saying that there may have been filming going on.

I hope the crews got out okay.

Wah.

There's a lot of confusion in some of the reports -- the CNN story is saying that some "prop" buildings were destroyed, but seem to think that meant the buildings were props, but I think it's supposed to mean buildings that contain props, and the reporter doesn't understand.

The CNN story also says that a park ride called the "Cyclone" was destroyed, and to the best of my knowledge there is no ride called the Cyclone at Universal.

The MSNBC story is saying the firefighters are trying to protect the film vaults, which are, in fact, in that area of the lot.

If they lose the vaults, that loss will be worse than any of the other buildings. Innumerable prints of Universal films dating back to the beginning of the studio are stored in those vaults.