CMU School of Drama


Monday, February 15, 2016

HUGE Stage Fire at "Make in India Week" Performance

ProLightingSpace: If there is one thing that our stagehand brothers and sisters in India are good at, it is putting on some seriously colorful productions. Throughout history the Indians have been at the forefront of a culture full of color and shape, and the stage productions are no exception.

Unfortunately there was a huge stage fire this weekend at a stage on the Girgaum Chowpatty beach, no one was hurt, but as you can imagine, what a mess

4 comments:

Lucy Scherrer said...

When I read the "HUGE" part of the headline, I assumed it was slight hyperbole. However, the pictures and accounts of the fire were both terrifying and truly lived up to the headline. I can't even fathom what my reaction would be if a fire of that magnitude happened during a performance, so the fact that no one was hurt is incredible. The scope of the destruction looks devastating. When I was 13, the house across the street from us burned down to the foundation due to an electrical fire, but the actual flames seemed fairly small to cause so much destruction. In this incident, however, the flames look enormous and like they swallowed the entire stage, which makes me wonder how much more damage they caused than a simple house fire. The fact that the flames were fanned by the wind because they were inside is interesting because I wonder how much less damage would have been done if a similar fire had been started in an indoor environment? Obviously, the evacuation of audience members would have been much more difficult had the venue been inside but maybe the fire would have been more contained.

Scott MacDonald said...

As Lucy said in her comment, this article title is not exaggerating. That is a HUGE fire! I’m confused as to what was even burning… it looks like mostly trussing and very little wood/flammable construction, so it’s weird that there is such a big blaze. I think this fire is also so shocking to us here in the U.S. because our fire safety regulations are so strict, so there are rarely huge fires like this. I wonder if this production was following all of the regulations in that part of the country. If they were, I hope this promotes a change in common practice and rules about fire safety. If rules were being bent, then this fire will definitely serve as strong motivation against future corner-cutting. It’s amazing that no one was seriously injured. I’m guess the fire spread slowly enough that everyone could clear out in time. What’s weird though is that there was no clear response to try and put the fire out. If there was time for everyone to get away from the flames, why wasn’t there a response to extinguish the blaze? I’m guessing this was a huge mess to clean up once the flames went out.

Monica Skrzypczak said...

Ever since Molly’ class I get a pit in my stomach every time I read about a theatre fire. Thankfully, no one was hurt, so you know they were at least mostly following fire code. However, I wonder what the fire code is for events in India considering how massive the fire got in these pictures. Scott is right- there doesn't seem to be any fire fighters in any of the pictures, just a bunch of people watching it burn. Thankfully it was an outside show so there were no walls to keep people in. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be sitting in a show only to see a fire erupt onstage and consume the entire theatre. Simply terrifying.

The picture of the moving lights on fire hurts my lighting heart as the hundreds of thousands of dollars of technology goes up in flames. I’m a little surprised that the truss and lights burned, but when the fire is that big, it’s bound to be incredibly hot.

Sophie Chen said...

I always freak out when smoke starts to come off of my hot glue gun or stove; I can't imagine a huge theatre fire on such a big scale. I'm surprised and very relieved that no one got hurt in such a big fire. With the fire under control within 30 minutes after the fire broke out, I think they handled it fairly well. However, if they did a better job with the safety precautions, this fire wouldn't have even happened in the first place. Hopefully this fire didn't happen for nothing and will lead to stricter safety standards and restrictions being brought in place. I feel like fire safety isn't valued as much as it should be in countries outside of the US. Before I came to college, I had no idea that there are so many precautions for stage fire, such as how there can be no unpainted wood on stage. I think this is definitely something other countries should learn, because if they don't have a strong regulation for stage fires, chances are they aren't going to be prepared when one actually does occur.