Fire at USH.....
 

A back lot fire has burned several buildings and set off a few propane tank explosions.

Anyone have more details?

I know CM will, but he was hanging out with us last night while it was happening.

Apparently, King Kong is toast.

It's sad to hear that some historical materials may have been lost. I'm glad that no one was seriously injured.

Here are two buildings that are buring/burnt....




The building at the top was King Kong, the bottom one (now also pretty much gutted) is the Film Vault.

It looks like New York street and the clock tower square are also burnt.

THE FILM VAULT!?!?!?!?!?!>?!>?!>?!

FVCK!

KNBC is reporting that the park has delayed it's opening for today.

A collection of Silvestor Stallone cars was destroyed.

Precious back lot sets... irreplaceable film vault... historic displays...

why would they need water?

The film vault encompasses the red-x building and the long skinny one to the left (which is not on fire). Hopefully all the important stuff is in the one on the left.

I thought of CM when I saw this on the morning news. I'm glad it didn't happen while the park was open, that could have been disasterous. I hope the losses aren't extensive!

I'm quite frightened about the film vault - I sure hope we didn't lose anything that wasn't archived elsewhere. That's a horrible thought.

I'm also bummed about Kong. I love giant scale animatronics. Here in Florida, we had an attraction with not one, but two enormous Kong figures, and I adored it. I was sad to see it go, but I consoled myself thinking that I could always go to CA and see their Kong. Alas, that's a wrap for the big monkey. It wasn't the planes that killed him.

(Is there a Kong in Japan's Universal? I'll have to find out.)

Edited to add: Nope, no Kong at USJ

The LA County FD chief is saying that the "video vault" is burnt as well as the back to the future square, New York Street and King Kong.

Was backlot filming complete for the Watchmen movie? I know they were using the New York set...

It's not the film vault it's a video vault. If they are smart, they have protection masters of these tapes that burned at other facilities. That is usually what most studios do... Not sure if that's what Universal does.

The Back to the Future square is gone, courthouse square is gone and King Kong is gone.

There is a huge pillar of smoke covering the sky around here. There's ash all over the yard and covering the cars here. Several people walking around are wearing surgical masks.

Apparently, they used water from some of the lakes on the property to douse some of the fire. The aerial shots I have seen show a lot of damage has been done to the lot.

So, if Matt was scheduled today, it looks like he has to be there and doesn't get the day off...



But somehow, somehow they are going to open the theme park and City Walk area at noon according to the pres of Universal. I think that's stupid. There's bad air quality where I live, I can't imagine what it's like at the park itself.

They are also saying the universal studios cyclone ride was destroyed.

What's the cyclone?

:( This is just sad.

The video vault was burned - those are duplicates not masters.

King Kong is gone (which is really sad, he was one of the few survivors of the 1990 fire).

The Courthouse building is still there, but the facades at the opposite side of courthouse square are gone (pretty similiar to what happened in 1990).

I think I'm just gonna go cry a lil. :(

I just hosed down the property that I live on. There are huge pieces of ash all over the place. The pool is covered with ash.

I don't know what the cyclone is...

Wouldn't it have been ironic if the Backdraft ride burned down?

Or if lighting hitting the tower started it.

Here are a few "on the scene" photos...

I wonder if, while Kong burned, the lot smelled anything like LSPE's place did last night while they were making bananas brulee.

Well, as sad a this makes me (and it does), if there is anything left to be seen of the mighty Kong himself, I hope that photos show up. Why? Well, because potentially, it might look really cool. (Or it may have simply become an unrecognizable heap of charred twisted metal.)

That said, this really sucks.

The loss of Kong makes me really sad for a few reasons - First up, he survived the 1990 fire that really ripped up the backlot. Second, after years of neglect from Vivendi (spit) who decided that the attractions didn't need yearly maintenance, NBC Universal had restored him last year, and he got his yearly maintenance this year, just a few weeks ago. So he was lookin' pretty good for a big piece of 1980s large scale mechanical effect.

Thirdly, a lot of people put a lot of heart into King Kong's show building- if you ever saw the "grafitti" around the bridge or at the exit tunnel, that was all names of people who worked on the Tour. I've still got a "KONG LIVES" button from 1990- years before I worked for USH, but it still shows that there was a ton of pride in that 16 ton beast.

KONG LIVES - somewhere :cheers:

I wonder if Universal had a film crew covering this. It could make for some very hard to get stock footage.

I remember you telling us about this when we were on the CoasterMatt Tour. I'm glad we got to see the big guy with you before he perished.

I saw footage of the roof of the Kong building caving in. So, so sad. I remember the last fire and how devistating that was. I've got a Kong Lives button too.

I hope they rebuild but I can see them buliding houses instead. Shame..

This is very sad. Most everything can be replaced, but I wonder if they will replace Kong? It was a set peice from the movie, right? Would there be a reason to rebuild that? Since everything is CG (Computer Generated, not Gemini Cricket that is) the just don't build large mechanicals anymore.

At least the video can be replaced, but it will take time and money.

Two of the four sets from Ghost Whisperer were lost. But at least this is the summer break, so hopefully they can get it rebuilt before then.

Yeah, the whole Back to the Future square was redressed for Ghost Whisperer'er'er'er...

Kong wasn't for the film but an original attraction.

the AP has a bunch of photos on Yahoo...

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Fire-d...8universalfire

Its soo hard going through them, knowing i saw Kong and parts of New York on 07/16/05 on a VIP tour....

As bad as this looks at least it happened on a calm day (judging from the smoke cloud). If the winds had been strong there is no telling how bad this could have been.

Is the park open today? Have the canceled the entire tram tour or just routed around the fire area?

The park did not open today, as of now, it's still scheduled to be open tomorrow

I'm with Flippy in morbidly hoping they've got footage of Kong going down in flames. Preferably while in motion. I mean, if he's going to go down, it should at least be in a literal blaze of glory. He deserves that.

Ride monitoring / Security cameras perhaps? Even if the attraction was closed I would expect there is some type of video surveillance of the grounds. Probably some sort of live feed directly into the video vault for safe keeping.

That's what I'm hoping for. Even grainy black and white slow frame rate footage would be awesome, if not somehow even more dramatic. I'd be surprised if they weren't recording security footage (Matt?), but whether they'd let it be seen is another question.

Well, in my sick mind, whenever they go to show footage of the fire today, I keep thinking of the scene in the Backdraft attraction - "If you see fire trucks, get out of the way- they're not going to the movies"

Don't know the source or validity but JeffG at MousePad commented on reports that among the replacable video stuff in the video vault was also space rented to Universal Music Group and lost are a number of original masters from MCA and Decca records that would not be so replaceable.

if thats true... then it might be a sad day for the record as well as the radio industrys pending what masters they were storing in there...

Fox is showing video of a roof collapsing as well as an explosion with something flying through the air. :(

Don't know if this was Jeff's source but here's Nikke Finke's blog post. Sometimes she's full of ****, though, and I'm not finding anything on Google News yet.

Includes this sentence:

wow, that is a "wide range of music."

...

I was on the plane and caught it on the news. I'm just hoping everything and everyone is okay. No matter what, it's a loss... let's just hope enough things were preserved elsewhere.

If it exists, hopefully it goes back to a central monitoring station and not a recorder somewhere in the show building....

Bwa-ha!

That. Would. Suck.

Here's a video of Universal's fire. There were explosions. A friend of mine saw several in the early morning.

I'm being reminded of how worthless some scumbags posing as humans are.

I have been cussed at 3 times this morning, because of a fire on the backlot.

Before work today, I walked to the back of the park, and the burned area looks like a warzone- but other than King Kong and the video vault, the facades will be rebuilt pretty quickly- and might make the studio tour extra interesting during the reconstruction.

I was wondering about this. There were people asshats on the news last night saying how US "let them down" and "lead them on" about the park opening. I just wanted to reach in the TV/radio and smack them!

Why? Pissed the park was closed yesterday? Upset they won't get to see Kong? Upset that bud light really does taste like piss?

People are so self centered. USH is first a working movie studio, then a theme park. That was ON FIRE. They should be happy it was open to the public today.

The air quality was really bad, I'm surprised they even considered opening it yesterday.

CM, I'm sorry you have to deal with the self centered asshats :(

The air quality isn't that great today, but the attendance seems pretty good.

Are they doing the tour at all?

Yeah, the tour is running. I'll probably go on it after work today, and take some pictures.

I considered the air quality myself and wondered why bother?

What are they doing for staff as far as that goes?

And, I understand, there are shows in production?

Well, just returned from Universal. Got a bunch of pics and some video. It is truely sad to see the devistation. It is amazing to see where things once were are now not but that goes without saying...

The tram goes right by the area and they are very open about what happend. The Back to the Future courthouse is still standing as are the buildings to its left which is seen mostly when the Delorian rushes down the street in the film, ending up in the movie theatre. Also still standing is the brown office type building at the South eastern end of New York Street. The building used in Dirty Harry- "You feel lucky punk.." is gone too. You could see a tiny bit into the Kong building and there's nothing to really see. It seems, according to CoasterMatt, the "bridge" had been dragged out and was sitting just to the left of the burned out Kong building. No sign of Kong himself though.

Pics eventually.... :(

Maybe he was launched into the air during one of the explosions.

That'd be one big-ass flying monkey!

I wonder if the Kong figures from Universal studios Orlando were stored or saved in any way, and if so, could one or both of them be moved to USH as an eventual replacement? Or, are the molds still around somewhere? I'm kind of surprised by how badly I want there to be a giant mechanical gorilla in this world. But I really do.

That's Wicked.....

USH has put out a statement that Kong will not be rebuilt, but will be replaced with an as of yet undetermined attraction.

Oops

My first guest was a welder's torch - close, but not quite :(

Here's some pics from today.

Want to see just how intense this fire was? Check out this Flickr photostream from the LAFD - http://www.flickr.com/photos/lafd/se...7605380470555/

Some pics...

I guess I'll have to add some of the photos from my USH VIP tour into my "special" photo collection. Me at the house I grew up in, Me on top of the world trade center building, me on New York Street......

Thanks for the pics Matt!

They keep reporting that the clock tower burned down. I'm glad to see it's still standing. People can't seem to get it right. Like that game telephone....

Even MP said the "Film Vault" burned down, when it was the "Video Vault" in actuality.

BTW, what is a "Blow Tourch" and how does that differ from a weilders tourch? What were the workers doing?

I expect that is becuase the official studio map lables that building as "Film Vault".

They were using it on the roof a building on New York street to heat up roofing shingles. A standard practice.

Well the LAFD photos on their flickr page show people carrying film cans away from the buildings, so there was film being stored somewhere that burned.

Cover up!!! I smell a cover up. I'll bet the Universal execs are busy dumping all their stock before it gets out that every original of every movie ever shot has been reduced to ashes along with all the copies which were stored on the shelf next to the originals.

So I wonder, where is film/tape for movies currently in production stored? Is there any risk there?

Actually, they were actually carrying IN the film masters and all known copies for Bio Dome.

I put up all the pics I took of teh aftermath. Most are from the day after - the others are from a few days later.

Feel free to ask if there's any "What is that." questions. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27555788@N04/