[mickey]

EPCOT guests arriving this morning (Wednesday, July 17th) were turned away at the parking lot entrance. Last night, at approximately 3:00 AM, a fire broke out in an electrical generation building that serves EPCOT. There was no major damage to the building, or any damage at all to EPCOT its self. The fire caused loss of power to the park, and has delayed the opening. No word yet when to expect the park to be re-opened. It has been speculated that the park may open later today, or at latest, tomorrow morning as scheduled.

Orlando Sentinel Article

Electrical fire closes EPCOT
From Staff reports

EPCOT was closed Wednesday morning after an early morning electrical fire shut down power, officials said.

Patrons attempting to enter the theme park's parking lot were being directed away.

The fire knocked out some electrical equipment serving the park, authorities said. No one was hurt, and the fire was put out quickly.

Reedy Creek Assistant Fire Chief Bo Jones said his agency responded about 3 a.m. to a fire in an electrical generation building.

"From our standpoint, there was lots of smoke, little fire," Jones said.

There was no indication of the cause.

[jwdj4lfe]

I just heard the news!!! I was siting down at my computer when fanatic ims me telling me she saw on the news that there was a fire at epcot!!! My first thoughts were of the epcot ball up in flames! I jumped out of my seat. I then jumped back and came straight to Disneycentral!! lol. I wonder how it started, Theres never been a fire at disney world has there?? Luckily it was nothing like that ( i know..im a drama king!!) lol. well im shocked by the news, but glad no one got hurt!
joe:)

[fanatic720]

:!: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!!! OMG THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A FIRE AT A DISNEY PARK BEFORE!! OMG DISNEY IS MY LIFE, AND THIS IS LIKE, VERY BAD!!! I heard of the fire watching UPN news at noon, and i had to go on the internet to see if u guys had heard it. THen i noticed that my good friend jwdj4life was on and i told him. he totally freaked!! i was freaking too and i cant help wondering if an arsonist is involed. there are alot of people (unlike us) that dont like disney, but oh well that cant be helped now can it. I dont post that often, but i love disney just as much as everyone who posts like every day, and this is a hard blow for us.:(

[mickey]

As an update, EPCOT will re-open tomorrow as scheduled. Apparently, they had power in most of the park today, but not everywhere, so they decided not to open the park until it was fully functional.

[Goofette]

I'm glad it reopened. I was wondering if we had any members there right now. I'm sure it affected a LOT of peoples plans. I can't even imagine what they do in a situation like that, especially if someone has a one day ticket only.

[geeman]

well, here may never have been a fire there that we've HEARD of.
I was there last May when Florida was still going through a bit of a drought - and there were wildfires everywhere.
My sister lives North West of Orlando, and when I left the house that morning, I could smell smoke in the air... all the way to Disneyworld -- I can't remember what was causing it, but I was at MGM for the Star Wars Weekend and could still smell the smoke in the air from the parking lot. There was a wildfire in the nearby woods somewhere.
Of courrse WITHIN MGM - you couldn't really smell anything.

[MickeyMac]

I was there, but at the All Star Resorts trying to settle my bill and check out. All we were told was that it was a "computer outage" at Epcot. It was kind of surreal since the CM's were kind of lost, but not a biggie.