This explains why the Seven Dwarves Mine Train ride caught fire on November first, and you can read the CNN article about that here. Apparently wishes was just too hot to handle and caught a building outside the ride on fire. This is most definitely not the first fire to happen at Walt Disney World, or a "signal 25" as all cast members are taught to call them.
During my college program, I literally put out a fire. No, it most definitely was not as big as the Mine Train fire, but it was big enough to cause a little bit of panic. I was outside Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt show greeting after a show one day when a guest tapped me on the shoulder and said that the bushes were smoking. Not quite understanding what was going on at first, I glanced to where they were pointing and saw a small billowing of smoke coming from a waist high planter with mulch and bushes in it. The smoking section had been recently moved to that area, so I guess someone decided it was a great idea to throw their lit cigarette on mulch. I ran over to see a tiny flame about two inches high building in the mulch. One of the merchandise girls nearby had heard the commotion and came over to asses the situation. "I have ice! We can put that on there!" she hurriedly said as we both assessed the situation. Thinking fast, I ran over to our supply closet and grabbed a rag and two cups over water. Remember something about oil fires and them building if you put water on them (Don't ask me why this applies to a piece of mulch lit on fire by cigarette ash or why that was the first thing that cam to mind), I threw the rag on the fire and smothered it. The mulch was still smoking just like the onlookers in the nearby smoking section, so I poured the two cups of water on it, and the fire was no more. In reality, probably about five people actually knew what was going on at the time, but it was still a memory that will forever be burned in my memory.
This was not the only fire at Disney's Hollywood Studios while I was completing my College Program there. In fact, that same week there were two other fires- both were caused by firework fallout, the same as the Mine Train fire.
The first fire was when a piece of fallout from the Frozen Summer fun fireworks fell on a Photopass backdrop and lit it ablaze next to the Studio Backlot Tour. One minute we see the Frozen backdrop smoking, and the next it is put out and replaced. I have never seen something like that taken care of so quickly I almost doubted it had happened in the first place.
The second fire, two days later, was much larger than the backdrop fire. Once again, a piece of firework fallout did not completely go out, and this time it actually lit the top of One Man's Dream on fire, the Disney Museum in Hollywood Studios, right next to the now closed Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow. This fire grew to the point of having flames atop the building before the fire department was called, and the building was quickly and calmly evacuated. No one was hurt, the building was fine, and everything reopened without most of the guests even knowing what had happened. Once again, a great example of how Disney handles accidents extremely well, and how you are probably the safest you could ever be on Disney property, even though accidents happen.
One of the scarier accidents that happened during my college program was actually an accident during the show at Lights, Motors, Action, and I happened to be in a position that show where I was right in from of the unfolding action. To fully understand what happened here is an article on thedisneyblog.com, and here is a video of the mishap during the show.
As you could probably guess, the back half of the red hero car was not supposed to shear off like it did. I have never heard two thousand people be as silent as they were in the two minutes after the car came to a stop. Normally the car flies over the moat in the midst of an explosion, and thank goodness the explosion did not go off.
Even though this incident looks scary, the driver walked away from the accident, was checked out at the hospital and was totally fine, and came back to work within a week. The roll cage in the car protected him from possibly having the part of the car he was sitting in being sheared off, and kept him super safe. Accidents happen, but once again Disney had a lot of safety measures in place to make sure the driver was still safe.
These are some of the experiences I had while on my College Program, but there are many more examples of fires or accidents at Walt Disney World, and yet most of the time everyone is completely fine. For example, there was another Lights Motors Action crash, this time involving a motorcycle, a Kilimanjaro Safaris truck fire, and a minor bus crash. In all, Disney World has accidents just like any other place, but they handle these hot situations with finesse.
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