{"id":402341,"date":"2026-09-17T08:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T08:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/402341\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T08:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T08:48:13","slug":"universal-orlando-animatronic-catches-on-fire-orlando-fire-department-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/402341\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Orlando animatronic catches on fire, Orlando Fire Department says"},"content":{"rendered":"

An animatronic at Universal Orlando caught fire late last month when the attraction was closed to the public, according to the Orlando Fire Department.<\/p>\n

Nobody was hurt in the Aug. 27 blaze, which was reported just before 10 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fire had damaged the machinery only\u201d and did not damage the building, the fire incident report said. The Orlando Fire Department<\/a> responded to the fire on the 6000 block of Universal Boulevard.<\/p>\n

\u201cUpon arrival, the fire was extinguished by Universal staff,\u201d the Fire Department said in a statement to Florida Politics. \u201cThere were no injuries, nor extension of the fire. The attraction was closed when the incident occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Florida Politics requested public records, the Orlando Fire Department said there were no 911 calls related to the incident.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fire Department\u2019s report does not indicate which ride caught fire, but all signs point to Skull Island: Reign of Kong<\/a> at Universal Islands of Adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring routine maintenance, the King Kong animatronic sustained damage and is undergoing repairs,\u201d Universal Orlando said this week in a previous media statement<\/a>. \u201cWe look forward to welcoming guests back once the work is complete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attractions Magazine reported<\/a> that Universal had not previously announced a refurbishment for the King Kong ride before the attraction was abruptly shut down.<\/p>\n

Universal did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The King Kong ride, which opened in 2016, takes visitors on a truck expedition past winged creatures and dinosaurs until the trek reaches the giant Kong himself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTowering nearly three stories tall, he is so close that you can feel his breath and sense his emotion,\u201d Universal said in a press release<\/a> when the ride opened.<\/p>\n

The ride has been involved in tragedy before.<\/p>\n

The same year the ride opened, a 38-year-old Guatemalan tourist died of a heart attack after collapsing following the ride. The man had a prior heart condition and wasn\u2019t a native English speaker, so he couldn\u2019t read the health warnings about the ride, according to a lawsuit filed by his family<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An animatronic at Universal Orlando caught fire late last month when the attraction was closed to the public,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,4020,141,140,7317,3440,3434],"class_list":["post-402341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-fire-department","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-skull-island-reign-of-kong","tag-universal-islands-of-adventure","tag-universal-orlando"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}