FARMINGTON, Utah -- Patrons at Lagoon looking for a scary thrill got more than they bargained for Saturday night as a portion of a haunted house attraction caught on fire.
Kyle and Cazree Stringham said they were out for date night and went to the Night Walk haunted house when a fire broke out around 8 p.m. Saturday.
"It went up fast," Kyle Stringham said. "She hates haunted houses. So, I'm having fun pushing her through to the next room. Suddenly, this guy runs up and scares us and then he says, 'A fire, a fire!'"
Stringham said he thought it was part of the Lagoon Amusement Park's haunted house experience, until people started running. He said Lagoon employees quickly evacuated the patrons at the attraction.
"They didn't even take us out of the park, just 100 feet back or so," Stringham said.
In the background of video shot by Stringham, park employees can be heard telling guests to stop recording and to put their phone away.
"I think the workers were worried that this whole thing was going to be caught on video," Stringham said. "They were very forceful. There was a guy behind me that said, 'Touch me, I dare you.'"
A spokesman for Lagoon said the employees yelling about pictures were concerned for people's safety as they lingered to take photos of the fire.
"I think the employees were trying to expeditiously get people away from the fire," said Adam Leishman with Lagoon.
Chief Guido Smith of the Farmington Fire Department said they were dispatched to Lagoon around 8:24 p.m. on report of a fire.
Smith said employees at Lagoon had already done some work on the blaze with fire extinguishers, and crews were able to quickly extinguish the fire. There were no reports of injury.
Smith said it appears the fire began in a mechanical prop of some kind, but the cause is still under investigation. He said the prop was outside the actual haunted house.
The attraction was up and running again within about an hour.
