Universal Studios Hollywood BackLot has a major fire - 6/1/08

[royaldisneyfan]

OMG! Luckliy according to the report, no one was injured.

But I remember riding the tour and seeing King Kong. I can't believe it's gone. That's kinda sad.

[MickeyM]

Nooooooo!!!!! Kong's life is now taken in another coast. (USO/USH joke.)

[Barbossa]

Isn't this the second or third fire they had on the backlot? I remember they had one a few years back.

[I Heart Disneyland]

Heartbreaking. I have a special place for that Back to the Future set. That really kills me to know it's destroyed.

[Crazy Larry]

The Court House building itself is still standing and only received minor damage. The rest of the other sets lining the outside of the court house square directly next to the New York sets were destroyed.

New england Street was completely destroyed as well as all of the New York streets.

The King Kong show building is gone. No more giant mechanical monkey.
Also a video tape storage building.

This same area burned back in 1990. It will be rebuilt again.

As far as Kong coming back? Who knows.

I've had the opportunity to walk around those sets and it doesn't surprise me that the set's burned fast and hot.
Everything is made of wood. And after sitting in the hot Southern California sun for years the wood is dry and can easily catch fire.

Plus everything is very close to each other so it doesn't take long for the fire to spread.

[CaliforniaAdventurer]

Heartbreaking. I have a special place for that Back to the Future set. That really kills me to know it's destroyed.

Want me to save some of the ashes which blew onto my car this morning?

Cough. Cough.

[CaliforniaAdventurer]

http://onthescene.blogs.foxnews.com/author/adamhousley/

More pics and video here.

[aquata]

This is terrible! I really hope that they can rebuild most of this area. The tram tour was what originally sparked my love of set design. I'm just glad that the Jaws/Flash Flood areas sound as though they were unaffected.

[stitchon]

I'm going to bet Mike Myers will say something like "RIP King Kong" on tonight's MTV Movie Awards.

[CaliforniaAdventurer]

He's probably hoping a giant Shrek audio animatronic will replace King Kong.

[AliKzam]

This is terrible. Do we know how the fire started? I used to do extra work full-time, and I know that a lot of people can go for long periods of time with no sleep and just stand around, mostly. It was an over-night shoot, so there could have been out-door heaters. I'm just trying to think of things. Clearly, some protocol somewhere is going to have to be changed.

[disneytim]

This is terrible. Do we know how the fire started?

Not yet. I'm sure it's too early to know for certain.

The blaze broke out on a sound stage featuring New York brownstone facades around 4:30 a.m. at the 400-acre property, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman said. The fire was contained to the lot, but about 400 firefighters were still trying to put it out several hours later.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. Damage was expected to be in the millions of dollars.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24916515/

A 1990 fire in the same areas as today's was caused by arson. It did $25 million in damage.

Universal Studios did not open at noon today as previously announced. They updated the announcement on their website:

At the request of the fire department, Universal Studios Hollywood and CityWalk will not open today in order to allow firefighters and maintenance personnel unimpeded access to complete their work. We regret the unavoidable inconvenience to our guests.

We will resume our normal business hours Monday, June 2, at 10:00 am. At that time all rides, shows and attractions, including the Studio Tour, will be operational.

The Gibson Amphitheater will host the MTV Movie Awards today as planned.

[Disneytwins]

My brother and I watched news footage and compared it to google maps and it appears that the Courthouse is still standing. Everything around it though has been destroyed.

[musiken]

As a Universal Passholder, this is horrible news. Our family ALMOST went to Universal yesterday, but decided to wait. Bad choice I guess. I'm not sure now I will renew my passes. The backlot tour, especially the area destroyed, is the main reason I go to Universal. We'll see. I do hope they rebuild/replace soon.

[sir clinksalot]

I was hoping to stop by Universal on our way back to the park to get some pictures, but alas they never opened. Still trying to see if they are going to be open tomorrow, may need to take a couple hours off and head over there.

I wonder how they are going to re-work the tram route now.