Fireworks Blamed for Disneyland Mishap, Home Fire

Five people on a Disneyland ride sustained minor injuries and a Tustin residence was damaged in separate incidents Thursday blamed on fireworks, officials said.

According to Investigator Michael Doty of the Anaheim Fire Department, the five people on the Inner Space ride at Disneyland sustained bruises, eye irritation and smoke inhalation. Two of the injured were examined at the Medical Center of Garden Grove and released.

A witness, who refused to give his name to Disneyland employees and left before fire officials arrived, said he saw two juveniles drop a firework that ignited dust and fiberglass that is part of the ride’s structure.

Four cars of the ride, which has a capacity of 240 passengers and was formerly known as the Monsanto Ride, were damaged when draperies dislodged by the fire dropped onto the cars, injuring passengers. Other passengers were injured trying to scramble out of the cars.

Work Praised

The fire was extinguished by park employees before the two responding units from the Anaheim Fire Department arrived. Fire Capt. Earl Stokes praised the work of park firefighters, saying “if everybody did as well as they did we’d be out of business.” Doty said that the eyewitness’s account “was supported by the evidence present,” which he examined at the scene. He later tested a sample of the draperies with a propane torch “and it did not sustain flame.”

Orange County fire officials said that a roof blaze that did $80,000 damage to an unoccupied Tustin home at 14152 Livingston Ave. was “fireworks related,” according to Pat Antrim, a department spokesman.

Joanne Evans, who lives across the street from the house, said “we’ve heard some fireworks going on all afternoon,” but did not see the fire begin. She said that she thought the house’s occupants were away on vacation.

The sound of a helicopter hovering low over the burning house brought the Evans family out of their home, where they saw that “the roof was just in flames.”

Flaming Shake Roof

At first, she said, the wind was only “a slight breeze” as her neighbor’s shake roof went up in flames. Later, after firefighters arrived at the scene and began knocking down the blaze, “the wind came up in small gusts and reignited some spots” on the roof.

The tract houses in the area, Evans said, were single family dwellings separated by about 20 feet on each side. Her own house, she said, “does have a shake roof. Some people have replaced them. We haven’t, unfortunately, but I think that’s the next thing we’re going to do.”

Neighbors to the north of the burning house were wetting down their roofs, she said.

The 25 firefighters on the scene knocked down the roof fire and fought the blaze from inside the house, according to Antrim.