Fire at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad on Reopening Day & Haunted Mansion Reopens After 2-Day Closure
Following its 16 month closure, some guests had to wait a few extra hours to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad on its reopening day, as a small fire on the track caused the ride to close again for several hours on Sunday. Here’s the latest, along with an update on Haunted Mansion, which had been temporarily closed over the entire weekend.
As basic background, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad closed for a lengthy refurbishment project early last January. The ride was down for over a full year for a “crevasse-deep to mountain-top refurbishment” in addition to “new magic” being added to the attraction.
The main impetus for the project, and what took so long, was a complete re-tracking of the roller coaster. While we’d hesitate to call it “new” as a result since the overarching attraction is still largely the same, the replacement of the track is a hugely consequential and costly change that extends the life of the ride. It also necessitated a lot of safety testing and resulted in other modifications, such as the lowering of the height requirement from 40″ to 38″.
Although not as germane to our post, Big Thunder Mountain has an updated opening scene with a transformation of the Rainbow Caverns, tons of bats, and a mother lode of gold finale. Imagineering also refreshed Audio Animatronics in the show scenes, repaired long-broken effects, added Easter eggs, expanded the backstory, and more. The end result is a refreshed version of the icon Big Thunder Mountain Railroad attraction that has delighted guests for generations.
Apparently, the tiki gods were angered by all of the celebratin’ on reopening day of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, as a small fire was reported at the load station on reopening day, May 3, 2026, at Magic Kingdom. Based on a review of video from the scene, it appears no guests or Cast Members were injured, and the fire was quickly extinguished by a Cast Member.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad closed at around 6 pm last night as a result of the incident and was closed for over 4 hours. On an incredibly positive note, the ride actually ended up reopening towards the end of the evening, at around 10:20 pm.
BTMRR posted a 30 minute wait time upon return, but keep in mind that would’ve been around the end of Happily Ever After, as guests were either exiting the park or staking out spots for the final Disney Starlight Night Parade.
Walt Disney World has not commented on the cause of the fire, but videos (lots of cameras around since it was reopening day!) show flames briefly visible on the track braking system in the load and unload area before a Cast Member extinguished them. Take a look at a couple of different angles:
Viewer sent video of a small fire coming from below the track in the load/unload area of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom. Cause of the fire unknown. pic.twitter.com/Y1MvkH9o5p
— Ashley Carter (@AshleyLCarter1) May 4, 2026
A little mishap this afternoon during Big Thunder Mountain’s first day of operation after the long refurb. #BigThunder #MagicKingdom #WaltDisneyWorld pic.twitter.com/4D2eAPfqhk
— Scott Spillers (@ScottSpillers) May 3, 2026
While it’s never great to have an attraction catch fire (I take that back–looking at you, Enchanted Tiki Room Under New Management), it’s not totally shocking with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, especially on reopening day.
Roller coasters use friction that generate heat while braking; enough friction, and you’ve got fire (this lesson brought to you by my time in Boy Scouts). Although unconfirmed, this was likely the cause of the fire.
Without knowing more, my guess would be that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad never saw the amount of cycling and usage, and with full guest loads, during testing as it did on reopening day. Given the nature of the braking system, a small fire on the brakes would not necessarily cause damage to the attraction necessitating another lengthy closure to repair or replace components.
This is further reinforced by Big Thunder Mountain Railroad reopening on the same evening after a few hours. The ride would not have been cleared to come back online if there were lasting damage or lingering safety concerns. So that’s reassuring.
Interestingly, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad did not open with the rest of Magic Kingdom at rope drop and remains “temporarily closed” per the My Disney Experience app at the time of publication.
This is also unsurprising for a newly-reopened attraction, or really any roller coaster. It’s unclear whether today’s downtime is connected to yesterday’s fire. We would assume it is not–it would be odd for the attraction to be cleared to reopen, but then closed the next day. Unless overnight testing revealed additional issues.
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Slinky Dog Dash, etc. have delayed openings about 20% of the time. This could simply be bad luck and BTMRR hitting its 1-in-5 delayed opening mark (which is probably even higher for newly-refurbished rides). That’s the best case scenario, and hopefully BTMRR is back by the time you read this.
Haunted Mansion Reopens After 2-Day Downtime
In more positive “temporarily closed” attraction news, Haunted Mansion is open and posting a 13 minute wait (probably higher by the time you read this) as of Monday, May 4, 2026 at rope drop.
Haunted Mansion was down almost all-day on Saturday and remained closed throughout Sunday. Based on attraction tracking, it was not open at any point between that nearly two-day stretch over the weekend. This was not a scheduled closure; despite extensive work occurring outside and around Haunted Mansion, no ride refurbishments are on the books.
The downtime was so lengthy/bad that guests in Magic Kingdom using the MDX app yesterday received a pop-up message from Magic Kingdom Vice President Sarah Riles, apologizing for the downtime and asking guests to enjoy other attractions in the meantime. (This is a nice touch that happens often when a ride experiences an extended unplanned closure; we got one recently for Kali River Rapids.)
As is typical, Walt Disney World did not reveal what caused the closure of Haunted Mansion. We assume it was not another fire on the tracks. If it was, perhaps that tiki gods being angry theory is plausible. Expect slightly elevated wait times for Haunted Mansion today due to localized pent-up demand, but there probably aren’t many guests who were in the park over the weekend and on Monday.
Ultimately, a bit of good and bad news with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Haunted Mansion. Long-term, we’re not concerned about either attraction. In the more immediate future, we do wonder whether BTMRR will have the typical ‘growing pains’ of a new or redone attraction. As evidenced by the fire late in the day, no amount of ride testing can fully replicate an operational environment with heavy use and full guest loads.
This should underscore why Walt Disney World has almost certainly throttled Lightning Lane availability for BTMRR. That was an especially smart move in hindsight, and also helps explain why the ride only had a 30 minute wait after coming back online. (Normally, it would be inflated to a much higher degree in order to ‘process’ the backlog of Lightning Lane guests.)
Big Thunder’s closure at rope drop today coupled with Haunted Mansion being down yesterday means we’ll need another day of data before making concrete conclusions about Magic Kingdom morning strategy. In the meantime, see Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Reopens: Changes to Wait Times, Lightning Lanes & Standby Strategy for tentative recommendations.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
Thoughts on the small fire on the track at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad on reopening day? Was the incident likely caused by braking friction, angered tiki gods, or something else? What about the extended downtime for Haunted Mansion? Excited for the iconic attraction(s) to be back? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I love the Tiki Room references. I’m writing a fanfic parodying Under New Management & used a punning twist on “the gods are angry by all of the celebrating” line, plus a situation similar to Iago catching fire. Even though Iago is my all time favorite Disney character, & up there in my Top 2 of favorite fictional characters in general (You probably haven’t heard of Okarin, the main character of the anime Steins;Gate–he’s my other current top fave), I disliked his characterization in Under New Management (He’s a fan of hip hop & rap? Oh, please, I can’t stand the stuff!) & disliked the show in general & it replacing a nostalgic show from my childhood. I was thrilled to hear his animatronic catching fire meant a return to the original Tiki Room. Now I just wish they’d do the full length show instead of a watered down version. I wear both Iago & Tiki Room shirts out to Disney or really anywhere.
What exactly does throttling Lightning Lane availability mean?
I’ll do my best to answer this one: When it comes to lightning lanes (or fast passes in the days of yore), the company can decide how many lightning lane slots per hour it wants to sell/offer. It’s not always the same fixed amount. But it’s a balancing act — the more lightning lane slots they offer, the more value is provided to Lightning Land Multi Pass (LLMP) purchasers. But this means more guests end up in the lightning lane queue, and the result is that guests in the regular line (standby queue) have to wait longer since the cast members have to keep the lightning lane queue flowing so that IT doesn’t get backed up ITSELF (a lightning lane queue can definitely get backed up if they offer too many lightning lane slots — nobody wants to pay to skip lines and then wait 15-20 minutes in the line they’ve “skipped”).
On the flipside, if they “throttle” lightning lane availability, they are offering less lightning lane slots per hour for the duration of that throttling. Technically speaking, they could offer as few as many as 100, a dozen, or even ZERO lightning lane slots for a certain hour or portion of the day (and as guests we don’t know this — all we know is that there aren’t any available slots during a desired time window, regardless of whether 500 people booked that time before you did, or there were never any spots to begin with). The fact that sometimes new “drops” of available lightning lane slots on popular rides occur at intervals throughout your day at the park is evidence of throttling. They held back some of the theoretical capacity and released it once everything went smoothly during the first portion of the park day.
And the less lightning lane slots they offer, the faster the standby queue moves, since it never has to pause to allow lightning lane guests through. This is why old-school theme parks (before “skip-the-line” programs) would generally not dynamically adjust wait times. For many popular rides/attractions there would be semi-permanent signage saying “Wait time is 60 minutes from this point” because the line always moved at around the same speed. Now, Disney and other parks have a ton of control over how fast the standby line actually moves and it can vary considerably even throughout a single day. A physically lengthy line might be pretty fast to walk through, or a shorter line geometrically might take a ton of time, depending one how many “skippers” there are.
As Tom noted, another operational benefit to throttling is that when there’s downtime, the lightning lane guests who didn’t get to ride during their window all are entitled to come back and ride when the attraction opens up again (with some exceptions). So the less of those to whom you have promised a ride, the less backlog of those guests you have to move through the line before the regular/standby guests get their chance.
Hope that helps, and please correct me if I got anything wrong here!
Pete, I don’t recall exactly when Fastpass came into the picture. When I was in the DCP in 92 working at 20K we were chastised frequently if a supervisor thought our posted wait was off by more than 5 minutes at any given time. Sure, we’d make adjustments for various reasons…but the greeter position had to be ready to answer when a supe’ came strolling through…
While it is nice to receive a pop-up message from Magic Kingdom Vice President Sarah Riles, apologizing for the downtime and asking guests to enjoy other attractions in the meantime, she could have added “please enjoy one free snack from any outdoor foods kiosk to make up for the inconvenience”.
Gawrsh.. was goofy driving? Lol
What was the point of my grandson recently growing from 38 to 40 inches if it didn’t matter with the lowered height requirement? All that money wasted on protein shakes!
When we were there last week, Haunted Mansion was down for awhile, then came back up, but the stretching room was walk-through (i.e. the ceiling was already stretched to it’s full height and guests just walked through to the ride boarding area). Wonder if that had anything to do with the extended closure?
Stretching Room can definitely trigger downtime, but since it’s not “needed” for the MK version (unlike DLR), they usually won’t let Haunted Mansion stay down for a full day or two as a result of it. They’ll do what they did during your visit, and try to fix it during overnights.
Maybe it was that, but my guess is that this was related to the ride itself.
So many people were hoping for new “surprise” show scenes, and when they put in a hot new effect in the load/unload area everyone runs away. Sheesh, what do you have to do to please Disney fans these days???
OMG A FIRE On Its Opening Day! too OH MY GOD GOD GOD
Awesome that it’s open! Sad that it wasn’t when I was there in early April… Can’t wait to ride this again. New tracks for a roller coaster are pretty critical and must be really well-tested. Physics is unforgiving!
And about that Starlight parade. Frankly, it sucks. It’s too short. The floats are lame (see video of the one in France, etc.). Seriously, there aren’t enough lights on the floats when you can see the expanded metal mesh at night! Even the lame walking/dancing characters are bad with bizarre costume appurtenances sticking up and again, non-functioning lights. Worst Disney parade I’ve ever seen.
Are You The Nico From Cash and Nico?
“Are You The Nico From Cash and Nico?”
Not as far as I know! Is he obnoxious too?