Damn! Fire at Austin City Limits music festival

Fire at the ACL festival grounds
Friday, September 14, 2007, 02:40 PM

Two Austin City Limits Festival service employees, critically injured in a fire earlier this afternoon, were flown to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Two other injured employees were treated at Brackenridge Hospital.

Sending a shock wave through an otherwise peaceful, if hot and well-attended, festival, a column of black smoke billowed above ACL?s festival grounds at 2:30 p.m., as a fire erupted in a service recreational vehicle and spread to two 18-wheelers behind the beverage vendor tents between the WaMu and AT&T stages on the north rim of the field.

?Around 2:30, I heard some popping noises,? said Courtney Powell, who was watching Pete Yorn on the AT&T stage. ?You?d see a little smoke, then two cops went running in that direction.?

EMS officer Mike Elliott said two people heard a noise in an RV parked in the service area and that when they opened the door of the vehicle they were engulfed in flames. He said it apparently was a flash fire and not an explosion.

Three fire engines and EMS crews arrived on the scene near the Town Lake Tavern beverage area near Lou Neff Road. Austin Fire Department spokeswoman Michelle DeCrane said that emergency personnel arrived six minutes after the first unit was assigned, or nine minutes after the first 911 call was received.

A hazardous materials team also arrived on the scene and set up monitors, but the slight wind from the south shifted the smoke away from the audience.

Crowds cleared a path on the service road for the fire trucks, which rolled quickly toward the blaze. Organizers stopped the music and cleared half the area in front of the AT&T stage, pushing people to the south.

By 3:10 p.m., police tape had been removed from most of the scene, and the music resumed.

?It all took place in a working area for employees only in the back perimeter,? said Troy Officer, emergency services coordinator for the festival. ?No patrons were ever in danger. The crowd was great, assisting officers setting up emergency tape. The immediate area around the fire was cleared within minutes.?

Elliott said that although music fans were drawn to the area of the fire, ?the crowds obeyed extremely well? when told to move back. He said advance planning by all the safety and security agencies involved enabled the response to be as ?good as could be expected? considering the 65,000 people on the Zilker Park grounds.