Gatorland caught fire :(

[Nate]

Well it's all over the radio down here...One of Orlando's awesome attractions, Gatorland, caught fire this morning. The fire started in the gift shop and spread elsewhere, killing (as reported right now) two crocs and two pythons.

Here's the story from CNN:

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) -- A fire early Monday destroyed a section of the venerable Gatorland tourist attraction, likely killing four animals. Among the charred areas was its main entrance, a huge concrete alligator mouth.

The blaze, reported at 5:55 a.m., badly damaged the gift shop, entrance and ticket booth.

Gatorland's alligators were believed to have hidden safely in a lake, but the fire may have claimed two crocodiles and two 8-foot pythons kept in a pen near the gift shop, said Tim Williams, the park's director of media production.

The park opened in 1949 and attracts about 400,000 tourists each year. It features 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. In all, Gatorland has a few thousand animals, Williams estimated.

"This park is like an old alligator. Gators fight, they get scarred up, they get beat up, they tear each other up, but they're resilient," Williams said. "This park's been here for 57 years. We're not going anywhere."

The giant concrete gator head that serves as the main entrance was charred, its formerly white teeth blackened with soot, its mouth full of debris. The mural facade around it, which had just been given a fresh coat of paint in a $1.5 million overhaul, was torn and burned.

Fire crews were still extinguishing the smoldering three-alarm blaze late Monday morning, but park officials said they hoped to be back in operation as quickly as possible.

Williams said it would be months before everything was back to normal. The park was working on plans to get guests back in. The shows could still be staged, he said.

This place was awesome..Mandy and I had a chance to go a few months ago and i'm glad we did. I dunno if this place will ever be the same, but it is def. worth the visit. I hope it gets fixed up!

[recycling goddess]

i'm sure their insurance company will help make it better than before!

[lillyorchid]

Hopefully no other animals where hurt and that they get back up and running soon.

[joepythons]

Wow thats sad .I am not sure if thats the place i visited when i was a young kid.Either way i hope them the best.

[djslurp1200]

I've been meaning to go there...I've always wanted to go but never have.

I'll have to check it out when they rebuild everything.

[Shelby]

That's terrible news.. but I'm glad they've decided to keep on with it.

I moved this to general herp.

[Amy1217]

Oh i love that place! I took my cousins there when they came down a while ago. I thought the albino croc (or aligator) was amazing. I wasn't in to herps then, so im sure i would appreciate it a lot more now, but that is really a shame!

[monk90222]

That is so sad. I love that place. My family and I try to get there every time we go to Disney....I'm sure it will be better than before.

[novato]

That is sad! But hopefully they will make it better now that they can remodel, even though it was really nice. RIP snakes and gators. They had a few tanks with baby animals in the entrance next to the gift shop.

[MissMandy]

Just found out that the cause of the fire was a faulty heating pad