The Cause and Preliminary Investigations
The Haunted Castle at Six Flags’ Great Adventure amusement park in Jackson Township, NJ, was designed specifically to scare people. It contained gruesome displays that remained darkened until you approached. There were spider webs hanging down that made your skin crawl.
On Friday, May 11,1984, the amusement park had an average crowd of 15,000 people. There was a line of people waiting to get in the Haunted Castle, and employees were allowing approximately 10 people to enter the castle per minute. The average time to get through this attraction from entrance to exit is approximately three minutes. At any given time, there are between 30 and 45 persons within the castle.
The castle was made up of 17 trailers, each 8 X 40 feet with partitions down the middle. Fifteen of these trailers were box trailers and two were open flatbed trailers. The trailers were of no special make or model. A few contained the side hinged type doors and others had the overhead roll type. The front of the castle was a framed structure with molded polyurethane-type foam sprayed on and then painted. The frame facade stood about 45 feet high.
The castle consisted of two identical sides, each having eight trailers. The seventeenth trailer was used as a control room for the employees, where they put on their makeup and costumes. It contained the electric panels for both sides of the attraction as well as tables and chairs, lockers, a telephone, and two fire extinguishers.
All the trailers were connected together by means of plywood and wood framing. The space between each of the trailers was about eight inches.
On the night of May 11, only one side was open to the public. There were four employees, dressed as ghouls, on duty. At approximately 6:30 p.m., an employee, positioned at the butcher station (see map), thought he smelled smoke. This was a usual occurrence. The employee was accustomed to telling guests to put out their cigarettes. A week before, someone had set off a smoke bomb. He went to check. An employee passageway connected the butcher station and the phantom of the opera station.
As the employee went through the passageway, he observed heavy smoke coming from the phantom area. He then proceeded back through the butcher station to the front gate to tell the other employees not to let anyone else enter and that he thought there was a fire in the castle. He then re-entered, went to the control room, dialed the Great Adventure fire brigade, and notified them of the fire (this was five minutes after detecting smoke). He then exited via the control room door. Looking to his right, he saw smoke and flames around the exit door from the strobe room.
Meanwhile, an adult guest discovering the fire ran through the remainder of the castle and told an employee that there was a fire inside. This guest was a major witness in helping to determine the point of fire origin.
The Great Adventure fire brigade is manned by a captain and a firefighter. As the engine left the fire station, the captain saw that they had a working fire. He radioed security to notify the Jackson Police Department to enact the mutual aid plan.
An offensive initial attack was made with a H^-inch line through the front door. The captain was met with heat, smoke, and flame rolling over his head within 30 feet of entering the castle. He decided to retreat and attack the fire from the rear trailers.
The regular police dispatcher was on dinner break when the alarm was received at 6:41 p.m. The relief dispatcher dispatched Stations 54 and 56 to Great Adventure. The mutual aid plan calls for Stations 54, 55, 56, and 57 to respond.
The first mutual aid company, located four miles from the amusement park, arrived 11 minutes after receiving the alarm. The company was directed to respond through the employees’ gate and to come around behind the castle. A second mutual aid company, located 15 miles from Great Adventure, was on the scene at 6:56 p.m.
Additional mutual aid companies were called, bringing a total of 15 fire companies to the incident.
Arriving fire companies encountered some difficulty getting to the fire scene because of civilian congestion. Security directed some of the fire companies to take up positions in areas other than their assigned pre-planned areas. A mutual aid drill had been conducted on the Haunted Castle a month before the incident. Security personnel were not active participants in that drill.
Great Adventure has its own water supply, maintained by the Jackson Municipal Utilities Authority. There is a one-million-gallon storage tank at ground level. This is supplied by water pumps from artesian wells. The water demand was not great enough during the initial attack for the pumps to kick on automatically; security had to turn them on.
After the initial attempt to fight this fire in the offensive mode, the strategy was changed to a defensive mode. Not until the fire was knocked down was there an attempt to re-enter the trailers. It was at this time that the fatalities were discovered. Firefighters were unsure as to whether they were manikins or human remains. The officer in charge ordered that all remains be treated as human, that nothing be touched or removed, that firefighting procedures continue throughout the rest of the castle, and that every firefighter continue to look for signs of other fatalities.
It was at this time that, according to standard operating procedures in the event of a fatality, all necessary agencies were notified to respond to the fire at Great Adventure.
The County Fire Marshal’s Office, the County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Arson Squad from the New Jersey State Police spearheaded the investigation in the cause and origin of the fire. Teams were set up and assigned the tasks of collecting information. It was through the use of this information that the exact point of origin was established.
Upon first investigation, two low burn patterns, remote from each other, made it appear as two separate points of origin. Further investigation disclosed that the fire had spread from one set of trailers to the other. The heat and damage that occurred from the burning tires was extensive, and hampered locating the point of origin.
It was determined that at the end of the strobe room corridor was a crash pad of polyurethane foam. This was to prevent injuries to guests running through the strobe room and hitting the wall. It was also determined that the strobe light was malfunctioning on the day of the fire. It would go out for periods of three to four minutes, leaving the corridor in total darkness.
A very common practice in the castle was for the guests to light matches or lighters to see where they were going. The employees were constantly instructing the guests to put out the matches. On the night of the fire, a 14-year-old was using a lighter to see. He accidentally walked into the foam on the strobe room wall, setting it on fire. He attempted to beat it out with a canvas bag, was unsuccessful, and apparently continued through the castle.
Initially there were two separate burn patterns discovered. Only intense investigation disclosed that there was a single point of fire origin.
When ignited, polyurethane foam burns rapidly. The strobe room corridor was constructed of combustible plywood on the ceiling, floor, and walls. The fire spread rapidly down the corridor and around through the phantom of the opera section of the castle. The course of the fire effectively cut off any avenues of egress for the victims.
Eight teenagers died of stnoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning. The victims were going through the castle in two groups. As the first group of five teenagers made their way through, they passed the hunchback display and then a display of a revolving barrel. A little further on, as they were nearing the phantom of the opera station, they encountered smoke and hot gases. It was most likely at this point that they started to run back.
Meanwhile, the second group of four teenagers was still advancing and getting nearer the revolving barrel when both groups met. All nine teenagers tried to reverse their path and go out through the entrance.
Victim number one and his girlfriend were in the front. They were only able to get as far as the coffin display when they were overcome by smoke and fell. A Great Adventure employee was able to get the girl out. The other seven victims were found in a corridor by the hunchback display.
The travel distance through the castle was 458 feet. From the entrance to the first emergency exit was 226 feet. A second emergency exit was another 100 feet, and 118 feet to the final exit. The first victim was discovered approximately 100 feet from the entrance and the remaining seven were found 120 feet into the castle.
