Due to recent CNN reports

this post would be fascinating if it made any sense

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVOIJb-MDTlLZnEoHPIdvihd1P1w

(Bolding by ossobuco)


Universal Studios inferno started by accident
1 day ago

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ?- The huge blaze that gutted Universal Studios near Hollywood at the weekend was started accidentally by workers laying down asphalt shingles on a set made to look like New York City, investigators said Monday.

"The fire was an accident, it was not intentional, it was not arson," Los Angeles County supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told reporters.
"Two workers and a supervisor were applying asphalt shingles to the roof on the building façade. They were using a blowtorch to heat the shingles," said LA Fire Department Chief Michael Freeman.
He said heated tools were left on the set used for outside shots for shows as varied as "Seinfeld" and "NYPD Blue."

However, Freeman appeared to clear the workers from liability in the blaze, stressing: "They followed company protocol and policies to stand watch for one hour. Seeing no indication of fire, they took a break at 4:00 am."

The fire was first noticed at 4:43 am by a security guard.
The Universal Studios theme park was reopened for business Monday after the huge fire which at its height was tackled by some 400 firefighters, backed by water-bombing planes.

In a drama worthy of one of the studio's own box-office melting scripts, the blaze, which broke out before dawn Sunday, swept through some the studio's most famous sets and tourist attractions such as the emblematic town square from "Back to the Future."

Nine firefighters and a sheriff's deputy were slightly injured as they battled the fire in a narrow alley fashioned to look like New York City.
Despite the enormity of the blaze, studio head Ron Meyer said "nothing precious was lost" even though the video library was damaged and some 50,000 tapes were burnt.

Film negatives and other priceless materials were stored safely in underground buildings several hundred yards from the fire, he said.
Investigators were also looking into the lack of water pressure in fire hydrants which may have hampered firefighters early on as they struggled to get the blaze under control.

"The water came out of hoses anemically," county Yaroslavsky told the Los Angeles Times. "The water-pressure issue is going to be the postmortem issue of this fire."

The same area was ravaged in an arson fire in 1990, which caused some 50 million dollars in damage, and was rebuilt including "deluge pipes" which were designed to dump large amounts of water on any future fires.
But Freeman said the deluge pipes might in fact have been partly to blame for the lack of water pressure on Sunday.

Dramatic scenes were captured Sunday as flames topped 30 meters (90 feet), fed by propane gas from ruptured cannisters at the site.
A plume of thick black smoke also hung for hours over Universal City, some 15 kilometers (nine miles) north of Los Angeles.

Authorities said one popular attraction, the King Kong exhibit, was completely destroyed. Other reported casualties included an alley from "The Sting" and movie sets from other classics such as "The War of the Worlds," "Ben-Hur" and "Psycho."

The fire also consumed the set from the current hit television program "Desperate Housewives."

Universal Studios, founded in 1915, is one of a half dozen major studios which dominate the US movie industry and serve as anchors for Hollywood film productions. The others are Fox, Warner, Sony, Disney and Paramount.

oddly enough i got the whole fire story from the original post, it's the weird 9/11 stuff mixed in that mystifies me

Don't you get it djjd?

Asphalt is a muslim plot. It addicts us to oil because we drive on it. It creates great fires when "accidently" heated with a blow torch. Now if we could just get people to realize that dog attacks are a muslim plot caused by muslims domesticating dogs 5000 years ago we would be so much safer.



(The above is satire.)

oh, well that clears it up, thanks

I think the translator in his shoe phone is broken.

No. No. No. In destroying New York Street, terrorists were symboliclly attacking NYC - Again.

Ya guys gotta learn to read between the lines.

This is that same Russian jackass who's been posting here for years. Each time he shows up, he logs in another new account and screen name--but his style and content out him every time. Not just the appallingly bad English, but his obsession with just two subjects--the world-wide muslim terrorist conspiracy, the vile, evil Georgians and their poisonous wine (he did several posts in a row about Georgian wine a few years back, and how Bush is evil because he supports the Georgian poisoners--i **** you not, i ain't makin' this up).

He will never return to this thread. I suspect he writes up this tripe, and posts it as many places as possible. A new account and screen name each time protect him from getting banned, so i suspect he posts from internet cafes so that there is a different IP address each time, too. But his "signature" is all over every post he makes.