Fire Destroys Building At Great Escape, Food warehouse building

From The Post Star

Hmm, interesting...

good thing that nothing else was destroyed... but anything bad usually has something good coming out of it (ie: rebuilding bigger & better).

The Post Star has an update on their site today. TGE says that they have made special arrangements with Sysco (their major food supplier) to get the food they will need for normal park operations their final weekend.

So far, the investigation by the cause and origins team has not found the cause of the fire, and they seem to think that there is too much damage to be able to tell for sure.

However we can speculate a bit. The first article pointed out that it was a wood structure. Steel has been used for buildings like that for quite a few years now. Considering that the food warehouse was located in one of the oldest areas of the park, and that it was a wooden structure, I will guess that it was an old building.

It is therefore not a huge leap of faith to assume that some, if not all of the refrigeration units in the building were older units. I would think it fairly likely that the fire was the result of a failure either in one of the refrigeration units, or in some of the wiring that supplied them. Those units (and especially the older ones) use quite a lot of current, and any time there is that much current flowing, there is plenty of potential for a fire to start if something goes wrong.

Perhaps the positive side is that a local contractor is likely to get some work putting up a new building, somebody is going to sell and install some new refrigeration systems.

I expect that Six Flags will have a decent amount of insurance on their property, so at lest some of the cost of replacing the building, and equipment will be covered by the insurance.

How did the plans work out? did any one get to the park to see how the park turned out and how bad the damage was.

I did get to the park, however I never got around to going into Ghost Town, which is really the only place to get a good look at the area from (well, I guess the sky ride would work, but I didn't do that either).

They did have what seemed to be full, normal food service in place, so I don't think it had any effect on park operations for their last weekend.

good to hear that they got thing worked out quickly. I asked this question on a couple other sites and I was told they brought in temp refrigerator and freezer trailers to hold the food.

Yes, I saw that as well on Thomas' forums. I didn't see the trailers anywhere when I was in the park, but that seems pretty likely to be how they managed to get through the weekend.