Fire At Walt Disney World, Harmonious Barge Goes Up In Smoke At EPCOT

Following last nights performance of the nightly fireworks show Harmonious at EPCOT, on Friday October 21st, 2022, one of the show barges on World Showcase Lagoon caught fire, with flames burning brightly into the evenings darkened sky.

It appears the fire broke out on one of the fireworks barges, and not one of the larger multimedia barges.

As the fire started, plumes of thick black smoke were seen rising from the barge by stunned guests standing around the lagoon.

Photograph: @tim_beekman

As the fire burned brightly, response teams arrived via boats at approximately 9:55p.m. to extinguish the fire, with the flames quickly extinguished.

Walt Disney World confirmed via a statement that the fire was contained to the fireworks platform and did not affect the multimedia barges. “A fireworks launch platform had a contained fire after Friday’s show and was extinguished.”

Twitter user @tim_beekman posted a video showing the barge on fire.

It is too early to say what damage has been causes by the fire, plus, with the previous announcement that the show will end in early 2023, its not clear if Disney will want to spend significant money repairing the barge at all.

Although Harmonious debuted at EPCOT with great fanfare on September 29, 2021 as part of Walt Disney World's 50th Anniversary celebrations, the show has been poorly received by the public, with the large unsightly barges in particular coming in for much hatred among fans of EPCOT.

The show has been so badly received by the public that on September 11, 2022, it was announced that Harmonious would be replaced with another nighttime spectacular in 2023.

This begs the question will Disney spend money to repair the barge, or will they soldier on with the damaged show barge not working correctly, or will they cancel the show altogether, since it has already been announced that the show will end in early 2023?

Obviously what will happen is only speculation, the barge fire could have been pretty insignificant, and the show will go on as usual.

As we await official world from Disney, we will keep you updated on the very latest here at Gotta Go Orlando.