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.
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.
And both Universal and the FDLA are saying they plan on opening the park and even operating the backlot tour today (avoiding the danger zone, of course).
As of 20 minutes ago I think there was one report of smoke injury, but the firefighter's been treated and released. The King Kong ride burnt, as well as the New York sets. I think that the classic archives were safe, but some video archives were in danger.
The smoke column has dissipated. It seems the worst is over.
NPR said two firefighters sustained minor injuries and the
video
vault was lost. Nothing irreplaceable there, just copies.
video vault was lost.
Yeah, I caught that just now at MSNBC.com (I think). The film vault appears to be fine, but the video vault was lost.
