Xuxa Meneghel nearly died in a fire at Globo in 2001. At that time, the flames reached the recording of the presenter’s broadcast at Globo Studios, the same place that was the target of the fire this Friday (18). Television studios have been the target of several flames in recent decades. O TV news remembers some cases.
One of the most famous is the Xuxa Park fire (19942001), which occurred on January 11, 2001 in what was then Projac. At that time, 26 people were injured, some seriously. The accident marked the end of the blondedominated children’s attraction.
The fire began consuming the landscape five minutes before the end of the attraction, at which point Xuxa would board the ship, right where the flames started. On this day, the presenter recorded the program that was supposed to be shown on the 24th of this month.
While Sasha’s mother was singing her biggest hit Ilariê, a short circuit caused a fire that quickly spread to the area and consisted of highly flammable material.
In the only video that remains of the incident, shown in the Jornal Nacional on the same day, the Paquitas and some children can be seen running while Xuxa was still singing. Then the firefighters began to work with fire extinguishers. Only then did the moderator realize what had happened.
The blonde then ran and called everyone who was there, spreading panic around the studio, which was home to about 300 people, including 200 children the others being members of the production team, the technicians and the minors in charge. . The police had reported at the time that the venue was overloaded.
The then director of Xuxa Park, Paulo Netto, categorically defined the situation in an interview with Istoé Gente magazine on January 22 of the same year. “Five more minutes and she would have died,” he insisted. “The scenario material is highly flammable. I’ve never seen the fire burn so fast,” he added.
REPRODUCTION/TV GLOBO
The landscape of Xuxa Park caught fire in 2001
other cases
In April last year, employees at Estúdios Globo in Rio de Janeiro were also shocked after a fire broke out in the cooling tower there. At that time, the fire was quickly brought under control by the company’s own brigade.
The place was also the target of flames in late 2017 when most of the studios of the seven o’clock soap opera Deus Salve o Rei (2018) went up in flames. Back then, the fire destroyed sets and props for the series. To avoid new issues, Globo temporarily removed sequences involving fire from the soap opera, such as candlelit dinners.
Rosamaria Murtinho, 82, was one of the actresses working at the time of the fire. As Queen Crisélia’s interpreter, she was hurriedly removed from the scene by two production staff before the flames could spread.
Since the advent of television, several fires have ravaged the studios of Brazilian broadcasters. Among the most important are Record from 1969, TV Excelsior (19601970) from 1970, TV Tupi (19501980) from 1978 and SBT (then TVS) by Silvio Santos from 1978.
REPRODUCTION
Theater facilities were destroyed.
At that time the recordings of the station took place in the Teatro Manoel de Nóbrega in the Rua Cotoxó in Pompeia (western zone of São Paulo). The fire broke out hours after the Silvio Santos broadcast was taped at the premises, when only the bouncer was on site.
It was fast and destructive: virtually all installations were affected, rendering the stage, audience, machinery, cameras and lighting equipment unusable. The damage was 25 billion cruzeiros, but there was insurance.
The fire was contained by seven cars and 50 firefighters, reaching a building behind the theater. Unaffected were the administration office, which housed 18 tapes of the locally produced Cidade contra Cidade recording, and the outside truck parked next to the theater (but which should have been picked up in the yard).
To help produce the following editions of the Silvio Santos program, Tupi and Record borrowed various equipment. In search of a solution to the problem, it was considered that Silvio Santos would use the Teatro Cultura Artística, which was the headquarters of the extinct TV Excelsior, but the presenter finally made an agreement with the city of São Paulo and started using the auditorium of the Palácio das Convenções of Anhembi.
In 1976, the fire also destroyed a significant part of Globo’s facilities in Rio de Janeiro, which meant that Jornal Nacional had to be presented in São Paulo for about three months. Back then, soap opera chapters were also lost, but the station didn’t go off the air.
REPRODUCTION
Associates rescued Globo tapes in 1976