Fire Closes Disney's Animal Kingdom Ride

[Main Street Jim]

Anyone hear any more info on the Safaris incident yesterday? I heard and saw just a short blurb on the news this morning just before I walked out the door...heard that Safaris is closed today to further investigate...

[BrerSchultzy]

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Fire on Disney ride leaves woman hurt

Mark I. Pinsky | Sentinel Staff Writer
February 11, 2008



A fire Sunday on the Kilimanjaro Safari at Disney's Animal Kingdom left one woman slightly injured and the park's signature ride closed for the day, park officials said.

Between 3 and 4 p.m. a fire broke out near the front of the truck. Three fire and medical vehicles were dispatched to the scene, said Bo Jones, Reedy Creek Fire District's assistant chief, but the fire was mostly out by the time they arrived.

The fire was caused when an engine hose failed, resulting in a fire in the engine compartment, said Disney spokeswoman Andrea Finger. Four guests requested medical evaluation at the scene, and one of them, a woman who complained of a knee injury received when she jumped off the truck, was taken to Celebration Health. The woman was not identified.

The safari ride was closed for the day, which is standard procedure when accidents or malfunctions occur. A team is inspecting hoses on the other Safari trucks, and park officials expect the ride will reopen when the evaluation is completed, Finger said.

CentralFlorida's major theme parks, which are exempt from Florida's ride-inspection regulations, report to the state incidents that are fatal or serious enough to require overnight hospitalization.

During the final three months of 2007, they reported four serious injuries or illnesses from rides, including a fatal heart attack suffered by a 44-year-old man after riding theExpedition Everest roller coaster at Animal Kingdom, according to the "occurrence reports" filed with the state Bureau of Fair Rides Inspection.

Among the serious injuries or illnesses listed for that timespan: a 34-year-old woman broke a vertebra in her lower back onUniversal Studios' Revenge of the Mummy ride on Nov. 18; an 81-year-old woman complained of back pain after falling while boarding The Seas With Nemo and Friends ride at Epcot on Oct. 11; and a 77-year-old man complained of memory loss and irregular heartbeat after falling ill on the Tower of Terror at Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios) on Oct. 19.

One injury was reported on the Kilimanjaro Safaris during the previous quarter. Disney reported that a 42-year-old man broke his left ankle after jumping out of a vehicle on July 16.

[NJ Camper]

Just saw it on tv myself they didn't say anything other than a fire on a ride in disney here in NJ I thought someone would know more sounds like it's not overly serious thank god

[Darbylew]

Sorry to hear about the fire on the KSR. I had
not seen or heard it on the news.
FIRST TRIP 1972
LAST TRIP NOV. 2007
NEXT TRIP MARCH 31, 2008 FOR A WEEK
AND MANY TRIPS IN BETWEEN

[MickeyChick]

Fire Closes Disney's Animal Kingdom Ride

9 hours ago

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — A ride at Disney's Animal Kingdom has closed after a small fire broke out Sunday, sending one woman to the hospital with minor injuries.

Disney spokeswoman Andrea Finger says a truck engine at the Kilimanjaro Safari ride caught on fire when an engine hose failed. The blaze was mostly out by the time fire officials arrived.

The unidentified woman was taken to the hospital after complaining of a knee injury when she jumped from a truck. Finger says three other guests have been treated on the scene for minor injuries.

She says Disney officials are inspecting all of the vehicles in the ride. The ride will likely re-open Monday.

[DNS]

How scary! It sounds like this was caused more fear than danger though.

[mtown71]

How scary! It sounds like this was caused more fear than danger though.

I agree with that. Hopefully, they get it all back up & running. I loved that ride!

[TheRustyScupper]

1) It was a fire caused by a bad hose in the engine compartment.
2) These things do happen.
3) Without investigation, can't determine if bad maintenance or not.

NOTE: Having designed and built Big Trucks, I can say that hose failures can be caused by lack of predictive maintenance or just a premature failure of the hose. At least no one was seriously injured. Of course, "Big Red" might have crept in and caused it since being tossed from the attraction.

[#1donaldfan]

A knee injury....sounds kinda fishy to me.....I'm sure Disney has way better contigency plans than to just jump to the ground !!! Plus an engine that catches fire usually smokes first, then flames up.....I'll bet it was way more organized and low key than that article leads us to believe.....

[ibrowse17]

We rode that Friday, so I am counting my blessings. Hope all is well with those in the truck

[pogo]

I hope everyone envolved will be OK.

Those trucks do sit up quite high and if an elderly woman had to jump for fear for her life and injured herself, I'm sure WDW will take care of her.

[ThanxForNoticin]

A knee injury....sounds kinda fishy to me.....

This comment is probably a little harsh, especially since none of us were actually there to see what happened. I can see someone jumping in an effort to get away from a burning vehicle, and might land funny. Not everyone feels the need to fake an injury for personal attention. I hope the person is OK.

[IloveDisney71]

I'm glad nobody was seriously injured!

[Jasper]

You also have to remember that emergency staff are trained to always take down as nearly as accurately as possible what the injured person says happened. As high as those trucks sit off the ground I can imagine someone using the term "jump" to reflect getting down from it if they did so at a place other than the normal loading place. Thus, the term "jump" does not necessarily reflect panic or fear, it may just reflect the fact that the person thought the distance was more than just a normal step down.

[Aggie97]

You'd be surprised at the ways in which minor injuries can happen when disembarking from a vehicle in an abnormal way.

We just returned from WDW last week. On Saturday afternoon, we had gotten onto the bus from the Polynesian to DTD, and our bus crashed into an ambulance (with its lights flashing) that was entering the Polynesian through the exit. I won't go into the details of how the accident happened, but it resulted in the vehicles being stuck together.

No one said anything to any of the passengers. After waiting for quite some time and trying unsuccessfully to get information about what we were supposed to do, everyone finally exited the bus. Because of the odd angle of the bus, the exit door was directly on top of some landscaping, and when I stepped down onto the ground, I had a very sharp stabbing pain in my right heel. I kept walking - it got worse - I took off my shoe, and there was quite a lot of blood there. We finally realized that one of those landscaping wood chips (that had a very pointy end on it) had shot directly through the heel of my Croc, was stuck in there, and had stabbed into my heel. We talked to an EMT, who asked whether it was broken glass and then gave us an alcohol swab, and went back to our room to clean up. (I had Neosporin and Band-Aids in the room.) I did end up having to pull two wood splinters from the puncture wound in my heel later that evening.

Anyway, the whole situation was not at all serious, but it was surprisingly chaotic and disorganized... and it resulted in a minor injury. I guess these kinds of things can and do happen.

[wendy*darling]

Turns out the woman with the knee injury is an 8 year old girl.
I could see a kid stumbling while getting off the truck, especially if the terrain was not level.

Animal Kingdom's safari ride reopens after Sunday fire

Scott Powers | Sentinel Staff Writer

February 11, 2008The Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom reopened on time this morning for normal operation after a truck engine fire closed the ride Sunday afternoon.

The fire was caused by a damaged engine hose. The visitors riding in the vehicle were evacuated and one 8-year-old girl reportedly injured a knee while she was exiting the vehicle and was taken to Celebration Health for treatment, a Walt Disney World spokeswoman said. Three others were treated at the scene for minor injuries.

The Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction involves rides aboard a multi-passenger truck, through various re-created African habitats showing off captive animals such as elephants, giraffes and lions. The ride follows a storyline that has riders on the truck pretend they are looking for poachers in an African wildlife preserve.

On Sunday the truck fire caused the truck to break down in an area that did not have any animals, said spokeswoman Andrea Finger.

The truck's engine hose was replaced and the truck is fully operational again, she said.

-------------------------------
So the ride was not closed on Monday at all.

My biggest eek moment was realizing how fortunate it was that they were in "an area that did not have any animals"!!
THAT was lucky!

[Scar]

The truck's engine hose was replaced and the truck is fully operational again, she said.

I hope they left the black soot on the truck, that would be a pretty cool looking effect.

[Dixie Springs]

Hmmmm... damaged engine hose - typical poacher's prank. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Hopefully the guests didn't have to bail into the crocodile pond!

[broadway_chick72]

Oh my! That sounds scary.


(I'm actually more concerned about the bus crash that happened to Aggie97 than this)

I agree with Dixie Springs. Good thing it didn't happen on the bridge.

[MKRescueRanger09]

Just saw it on tv myself they didn't say anything other than a fire on a ride in disney here in NJ I thought someone would know more sounds like it's not overly serious thank god

What the heck... why is this making national news. That really annoys me. But yet when Rhino Rally FLIPPED OVER spilling the guests out like 2 years ago, there was barely a blurb in the local papers about it.

It's a truck that caught on fire, trucks do that...