ANAHEIM : Monorail Closes for 2 Hours Due to Fire

A small fire on on the Disneyland monorail track Sunday closed the train for about two hours but only caused minor damage and resulted in no injuries, according to officials at Disneyland and the Disneyland Hotel.

Paul Goldman, a spokesman for Disneyland, said a spark from the “live,” electrified, third rail on the monorail track near the hotel caught fire after passengers had already exited from the train. Hotel officials noticed smoke and notified Anaheim and Disneyland fire units shortly after 10:30 a.m.

Disneyland firefighters were first on the scene and extinguished the blaze before their Anaheim counterparts arrived.

“There weren’t any people affected,” Goldman said. “This happened down the track from the boarding area.”

Investigators are still trying to determine the exact cause of the fire, but Goldman said early signs point to a spark igniting either debris or a fiberglass awning that sits beneath the track. A section of awning several feet long was damaged in the fire and will have to be replaced, he added.

Windy conditions in and around the park Sunday afternoon could have blown debris onto the track, Goldman said, and that debris might have been ignited by a spark from the rail.

“Like any train that runs on a live third rail, there is occasional electrical sparking,” he said.

There was no damage to any of the monorail train cars, and the monorail was back in service about 12:30 p.m.