Alligator Arsonists Torch Tourist Trap
One of the oldest tourist traps in Florida suffered severe damage when a fire roared through it today. The 57 year old Gatorland has been pretty well gutted by the early morning blaze.
Fire crews were still extinguishing the smoldering blaze late Monday morning, so park officials hadn't yet surveyed damage inside.
Tim Williams, the park's director of media production, said Gatorland's alligators were believed to have hidden safely in a lake, but the fire may have claimed two 5-foot long crocodiles and two 8-foot pythons kept in a holding pen near the gift shop.
The blaze, reported at 5:55 a.m., consumed the park's gift shop, entrance and ticket booth, Williams said.
"Initial crews arrived on the scene and had heavy fire," Orange County Fire Battalion Chief Vince Preston said of the gift shop. "It had already been through the roof; it was obvious that this was going to be an extended operation."
Preston said it took about two hours to get the blaze under control. Crews were able to save buildings at two ends of the 110-acre attraction, which housed administrative offices and park records.
The park opened in 1949 and attracts about 400,000 tourists each year. It features exhibitions of people wrestling gators, a "jumparoo" show where the big reptiles leap for food, and "up close" encounters where guests can hold snakes, scorpions, spiders and birds.
Note that the gift shop was one of the first buildings to go up in smoke. That's where the suspected arsonists, the gators and their pyro python pals made a miscalculation and got caught in the blaze. Well, it was either them or the birds. Take your pick.
By Eric Furness, Tuesday, 7 November , 2006 @ 9:59 am
I read a couple of weeks ago that the E coli in the spinach was caused by feral pigs getting into the crop. Apparently they have resorted to biowarfare.