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[2024] Alpenexpress & Tiroler Wildwasserbahn Rebuild

Tbh its not that experienced when you think about general theme park fires, no more or less than Thorpe or alton. But the severity only Wicked witches haunt is comparable .

Even then I expect the site would remain for 6 months to a year before any work is completed
 
Rob said:
And here’s a look at what they’ve done to ensure the train can pass through the damaged area:



It really is remarkable!
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New tunnel cred!

Jokes aside Europa are smashing it! This is remarkable, I can't believe they got it open again so quickly.
 
Dave said:
I mean not many parks have the practice EP have with post fire operations so it’s not surprising 😂
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I mean I can only think of Disney... and particularly Epcot where Harmonious seemed to enjoy setting fire to things frequently.

And they did manage to fix the fire damage to the America Gardens Theatre within hours of it happening.

Good to see EP get the Panoramabahn up and going quickly again though, and hopefully Mack Large Format Printing GmbH & Co. KG can get a nice pretty picture to cover up the hoarding too! 😂
 
Dave said:
I mean all credit but I would be more impressed if they just stopped the pyromania in the first place.

Ultimately twice now lives could have been lost, they need a good look at their fire safety.
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You could argue fire prevention, however they have truly demonstrated the upmost professionalism over there fire saftey procedures.

No lives were lost in 2 major incidents, no entrapments. Fire safety processes are there to keep people safe and evacuate safely in the event of a fire… they have successfully done this… there is only so much you can do with fire prevention. In any building a fire is a possibility on any given day given the right circumstances.
 
Rob F said:
You could argue fire prevention, however they have truly demonstrated the upmost professionalism over there fire saftey procedures.

No lives were lost in 2 major incidents, no entrapments. Fire safety processes are there to keep people safe and evacuate safely in the event of a fire… they have successfully done this… there is only so much you can do with fire prevention. In any building a fire is a possibility on any given day given the right circumstances.
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Hmmmm sure

I work for an organisation that has more “large” buildings than EP has and we haven’t had any burn down in decades of operation.

You have to consider the fact the park has buildings that do not have modern fire protection systems that would prevent these things happening to any great extent.
 
When you think about it there does seem to be an abnormally high number of fires at Theme Parks compared to most other businesses.
The obvious answer would be a higher than normal use of pyrotechnics, but that's not the case here.

I do wonder if the real cause is the large number of un-maned plant rooms and show buildings that due to their non-critical nature often use outdated technology and likley don'thave an automated extinguisher system. It's interesting in this case that even while the fire was still ablaze we were hearing quite accurate accounts of what likley caused it. Suggesting that the fire warning system was very quick to detect the problem, but there was no way to respond quick enough to stop it escalating.

In both this case and 5 years ago I was surprised no guests were hurt because both areas had slow moving boat rides running through them that, given how quick the fires took hold, should of still had people on them. Yet they didn't, suggesting that an evacuation started even before the fire became noticeable. I'm almost certain that the staff on the rides and shops have very clear instructions to get the guests and themselves out when the warning alarm trips, but to make no attempt to endanger themselves by stopping it, leaving that job to the fire crew, who are never going to make it in time to stop the fire escalating.

With all this in mind the easy solution is fire suppression systems everywhere. But I'm also sure it's not straightforward to add these systems to buildings that were never designed with the infrastructure for them.
 
Most fire suppression systems do just that - they suppress the fire to provide more time to escape. Whilst the obvious upshot of this is that they can also limit the rate of spread (and therefore also limit damage before the fire service arrives), they won’t necessarily put a fire out if it’s large.

In a large warehouse building, they’re generally not that difficult to retrofit, but one of the issues the park would consider is how much damage the water from the system would do versus the benefit of suppressing the fire. Sometimes the water can do as much or more damage than the fire itself.
 
The slightly concerning issue to read was the interview with one of the park managers after this fire, who seemed to suggest that fire (detection) alarms were only fully in place across the whole park after the Piraten fire occurred. My guess would be that was an insurance requirement after investigations likely revealed that not all locations had fire detection and alarms, and they are a lot easier to retrofit.

Fire suppression technology, including plain old water sprinklers, is incredibly expensive and cumbersome and even more so when retrofitting it too.

Even plain old water sprinklers need humongous storage tanks to provide feed and pressure for covering a large area.

Other tech does exist (eg foam, gas) but would be even more expensive or just not suited to the environment.

But to be honest I highly doubt we’ll suddenly see any kind sprinklers or other fire suppression systems pop up anywhere as the cost and difficulty of retro fitting would outweigh the cost of the premium of the risk of it burning down… although that can’t be cheap for them now!

I imagine we’ll see other measures invested in again such as local firefighters and fire fighting equipment instead.

Good question to pose to them in a few months time though if they haven’t put any information out about it already (although probably also unlikely given they won’t want to stir up PR about it I imagine too!) 😅
 
I mean, one upside now you would image is that they will now be ON THIS as a 3rd fire - even a small one would be humiliating!

yes the first should never have happened (although was a blessing due to POBx2 being amazing.....can i say that?) and certainly fire 2 shouldn't have happened! And we should all hold them accountable for this!

But le'ts hope lessons are learnt - as there are still lots of multi-use buildings all crammed together across the park, many being 80's build wooden buildings. it's a shot across the bow the park may have needed to make it a new priority .....and in doing so this could prevent a future tragedy.... everything happens for a reason!

sometimes and unfortunately it takes negative incidents to evoke change!

The park has also successfully put into place 2 major evacuations, so another 'upside' - this is a positive demonstration of the parks operations, procedures and training and also relations with fire services, access etc . Often tragedy occurs when places aren't set up for major events ... and things like fire crew not having access etc, and not finding out shortcomings until disaster happens!

so weirdly I would feel more safe at the park as they've demonstrated competence etc - if that makes sense!
 
emmerse2891 said:
The park has also successfully put into place 2 major evacuations, so another 'upside' - this is a positive demonstration of the parks operations, procedures and training and also relations with fire services, access etc .
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Interestingly they claimed that they didn't 'evacuate' the park at any point - they said it was a staged closure area by area bit by bit starting closest with the fire, as they wanted to avoid any kind of panic and instead gently guide people slowly back towards the entrance - and by the time everyone was out of the park, it was around closing time anyway.

That was a good tactic in my opinion as I'd rather see something handled in that way than a mass exodus of trying to get everyone out in one go.

It was only when I looked through the Google Maps of EP though that I realised how many buildings are shared or in extremely close proximity - they were incredibly lucky it didn't spread across to the other side as it felt like it has the potential to reach the hotel too then.

Indeed it shall be interesting to see what comes of the incident though!
 
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