Huge fire at Warner Bros studios where Harry Potter, James Bond and Mission Impossible franchises were filmed
A massive fire has engulfed the Warner Brothers film studio in Hertfordshire, the very same studio where the iconic features from the 'James Bond', 'Fast and Furious', 'Mission Impossible', and 'Harry Potter' franchises were filmed.
Firefighters rushed to the site, located in Leavesden, at around 11.30 pm on Wednesday, July 10, to tackle the blaze, and were still at the scene on July 11 morning, according to the Daily Mail.
A spokesman for the Hertfordshire County Council confirmed the incident in a statement, saying, "The fire and rescue service were called to reports of a fire at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden in Hertfordshire at 11.29 pm on Wednesday 10 July."
"Fifteen fire engines, plus support vehicles, are currently in attendance at the scene and crews are tackling a fire in one of the stages there," they added. Authorities said that the fire broke out in one of the stages and that the "incident is ongoing."
A spokesman for Warner Bros similarly confirmed to the BBC that a fire had broken out at the site but said the public studio tours — the Warner Bros. Studio Tour attraction which takes guests behind the scenes of the making of the Harry Potter series — were unaffected and taking place as usual.
Speaking about the incident, Mark Hancock, who lives nearby, said, "My house is only about 200m away from the perimeter fence and we have a clear line of sight over gardens so we managed to see it out one of our windows."
"The smoke went high into the air, and as I watched, the smoke appeared to get thicker, so much so that we could see the flashing lights of the fire engines reflecting off the thick smoke," he continued. "It was still going strong at about 1 am and when I woke up this morning it was still smoldering."
The set was not being used at the time the fire broke out, and fortunately, no one has been injured. But the damage sustained by the studio, which was the birthplace of Pierce Brosnan's first Bond film 'GoldenEye' in 1994, is currently unclear.
Besides the Bond films, the studio, which is located on a site that covers almost 200 acres, has seen the production of other popular films such as 'Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace', 'Inception', 'Paddington', 'The Dark Knight' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.