Grand California Fire
 

702 hotel rooms evacuated at 3:00am this morning as fire alarms sounded and strobe lights flashed. it was the real deal as the Grand Lobby's Christmas Tree was engulfed in flames. a few guests had minor injuries during the evacuation and all gathered outside in the cold to await the Anaheim Fire Department's quick response. guests are still outside at this hour, but may be cleared to go back to their rooms in about an hour. The "AP lounge" has suffered extensive water and smoke damage.

Associated Press

ANAHEIM, Calif. - A 35-foot Christmas tree caught fire in the lobby of the Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel early Wednesday but nobody suffered serious injuries, a fire official said.

The hotel's sprinkler system kept the 3 a.m. blaze in check and firefighters were able to quickly put it out, said Maria Sabol, a spokeswoman for the Anaheim Fire Department....."

AFD spokewoman says cause was electrical and two guests suffer minor injuries described as "one with anxiety and one with back strain".

damage now described as "minor smoke and water damage" to furniture.

Not the AP Lounge! Where will we loiter in 2006?

That said, I'm glad there were no serious injuries or extensive damage to the hotel.

:eek: Wow, that could have been far more serious than it was. Glad to hear the emergency procedures did their job. I do hope the AP lounge is back in inaction soon.

That's what they get for having a fake tree.



I'm glad no one was hurt. Maybe next time they'll show more class, in keeping with $400-a-night sleeping closets.

Because real trees don't burn as easily? :confused:

Video of the firefighters putting out the tree can be found at this link: http://cbs2.com/local/local_story_362080450.html

How's this for a bit of irony, on Tuesday at around noon, I was making my way back to the Acorns Gifts and Goods shop and was stopped by Dorothy Stratton, the manager of the Grand California Hotel. She was spending her day off with her family and they were going to have their picture in front of the lobby tree. Dorothy had me take the picture so she could join her family in it. Fortunate timing for her. That picture will no doubt be a very memorable one for much more than just a family shot!:eek:

^ awesome that.



(And no, fake trees don't burn more easily than real trees. They just cause bad luck - ironically, I might add, in light of the evergreen life spared by using a fake tree. But it's just tacky.)


Anyways, I'm glad no one was hurt. Maybe we can re-christen the "AP Lounge" as the "Smoking Lounge."

Thanks for the video link, Hades. Was I the only dork who noticed that the stock photo they used was not only of the wrong hotel, but of a sign that no longer exists?

Jeebus! That just made the LOCAL news in Orlando.

I assume what's left of the tree has been removed and it's mostly cleaned up already? Has anyone stopped by there yet?

Yes, the remains (or is it "cremains"?) of the once majestic faux tree are now in a dumpster. Not sure where the furniture went, but I'm sure that it will be restored and back in the lobby some time in the future. All that needs to be done to it would be to clean and touch up the wood work and replace the upolestry (sp?), but I'm just guessing. They might have fire insurance monies pay for replacements to be made. Channel 7 news had a brief video shot of the work being done in the lobby and the wet vacs in full swing by the vacant spot that was once the spot of the tree. Just the support base of the tree remains in the lobby seating area.

Damnit. I pay a lot of money for my AP, they had better get the AP lounge back in hospitable condition. And soon!!!

I'm entiled to it!

:p /;)

I'm just a teensy teeny bit out of touch. I heard about this about 2 hours ago.

I'm glad everyone was ok and did a good jon keeping cold, er, warm.

Actually, I think Disney comes out looking good in this, they had a fire, everything worked as it was supposed to, guests evacuated, sprinklers engaged, fire fighters on the scene.

So, it's a week before my trip and so far my airline has had a plane departing from my airport with a hole in it that caused loss of cabin pressure and my hotel has caught fire.

I'm not sure if this means I'm jinxed and my trip is cursed or I'm blessed and all the available misfortunes have already happened.

I think you've been pre-disastered - what are the chances of a second occurance of either of those - nah, you're safe.

World according to Garp?

Does this mean the Lounge gets new couches and carpet? :evil:

This of course worries me most of all - definately were the most comfortable seats in the resort.

Ha. This is Disney! The couches will be reupholstered with the skins of the now gone Country Bears and the carpets will be made from the curtains and backdrops of the Snow White show.
:D

Suddenly, I'm transported to Gone with the Wind in post war Tara - and Paul Presler is playing the role of Rhett Butler...

What did fake trees do to you? LOL

I actually have a fake tree but then I'm allergic to pine. :(

Maybe they'll have a fire sale on the furniture. I could use a new couch.

In some places, cut trees are banned in multi-family dwellings. Not sure how that applies to hotels.

^ Wtf?

I kid you not. It appears in some International Building Code. It was big news here last year because WA was going to adopt the IBC and people were quite annoyed with the Christmas tree and BBQ prohibitions. They ended up not adopting those provisions.

Apparently in less forested portions of the country, cut trees dry out and ignite. (This is particularly true if your wacky German friends and relations insist on putting LIT CANDLES on their trees. But that's another story.) Hence the ban in multifamily dwellings, where one person's flaming Christmas torch can displace multiple familes.

Here, the argument in favor of cut trees was that we grow our trees in state so they're "less dead" than in other states where trees are shipped in.

Regardless, I have a faux tree because one of my cats has a personal mission to destroy all plants and I got tired of coming home and finding the tree had been knocked over. Again. She leaves the faux tree alone.

We used to have a kitty that would chew on the christmas light cords, but that problem solved itself :(

Prudence, you haven't lived if you haven't had the opportunity to wander around outside a hotel in the middle of the night in your jammies. I was staying at a hotel in Pasadena a few years ago and was awakened by the god awful sound of the fire alarm and a flashing strobe light. This was November 2001 so with 9/11 in mind I figured I should take it seriously and wandered outside with everyone else. There we all were, shivering on the sidewalk, in various states of dress and whatever. Amazing what people wear to bed.

It turned out to be a false alarm, someone had been messing with the alarm in their room and set it off. We could go back to our rooms almost right away but the noise was unbearable. It took the fire department at least an hour to fix things so the alarm would go off and we could all get back to sleep.

I can top that -- I was wandering outside a hotel in the middle of the night at a con. I was skinny then, and it was a con, so I was wearing much much less than my jammies. And it wasn't the most respectable part of town. (shiver) I remember big noisy yellow hose fan thingies in the lobby after that, so I think it wasn't a false alarm.

Just a littel update on the post Christmas tree fire clean-up:

The replacement of the carpet is well underway. From my vantage in the Acorns Gifts and Goods shop, the sound of nail guns was quite audible. Almost sounded like a shooting gallery for awhile!;) The original carpet was scheduled for replacement sometime in 2006, so this one is just a quick fix.

Scafolding is up to repair the ceiling beams. Chances are that they will also check the fire sprinkler system in the lobby if it needs to be done.

The lobby light stands (the stain glass ones that stand at the corners of the seating area of the lobby) are back in place. They were bringing them in by furniture moving dollies as I was leaving the shop today. They looked in good shape.

From what I've heard from my leads, they are attempting to have the lobby back in shape by New Years Day. Work is going on nearly round the clock to meet that completion goal.:snap:

You were slightly misinformed. They are making sure that the AP Lounge is back in shape in time for the LoT Birthday Celebration.

Okay, you win.:D

LibraryVixen and I were in the park that day, and went though the AP lounge on our way to breakfast at 7:50.

I pondered the lack of a tree, but all we saw was the yellow tape lines, and shop vacs.
We left Storytellers and went back to enter the park through the main gate... only now, the AP lounge had a cherry picker in the middle of it. I shrugged it off.

Two hours later she had a missed call asking her if she was staying in the Disneyland hotel, it was evace'd. We shrugged it off. Made a call sometime later, the facts were still a tad off...

Later, we met a nice stranger in the HM fastpass line who spilled the beans...he was a fireman himself on vacation and staying, (and Evaced) in the Grand Cal. well dag nab it!!! We were in that lobby twice!!! Had we known what we were looking at, we might have have paid more attention!!!

From what I saw? Speedy clean up... I'm sorry I missed the tree.

The Grand Californian lobby lounge is open again! They did it! Aside from the temporary carpet (same carpet that is used in the rooms)and the make-shift perimeter of ferns around some of the areas between the lobby and the walkway to the north side of the lobby, it looks the same as before. I didn't notice if the piano was back in place, but I didn't look for it. Pretty quick work. :snap:

There is one cabinet that I have always loved. It was on the west end of the lobby, the one on the left if you were looking from the center of the lobby. It was made of quilted maple and walnut. I have always been meaning to go in to carefully photograph and measure so I could make one myself. I hope it is still around, or at least is returned restored some day.

That cabinet was actually the first thing I thought about when I heard about the fire.