Fire in the Hole!

In the comments section of one of my recent posts, Cneil posted a link to some photos and information about the Fire In The Hole ride at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo.  I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to post the link to make sure that nobody misses it.  I learned a lot about Fire In The Hole that I didn’t know.

Fire In The Hole is a similar ride to The Blazing Fury at Dollywoood, and as far as I know, they were both designed and built in the 70s.  There are  some differences between the two rides, however.  I was surprised to learn that the theme of Fire In The Hole is much darker than the theme of The Blazing Fury.

The plot of The Blazing Fury is that a town is on fire and firefighters are trying to put it out.  That’s basically it – the cause of the fire isn’t mentioned.  Despite the burning town, The Blazing Fury is a light-hearted ride overall, with most of the scenes focusing on comedy.  For instance, there’s one scene where a girl is chasing a guy around a burning house because she wants a kiss, and he tells her that she looks like she’s “been kissing that steam train”.  There’s also the famous scene where Molly is about to jump off the roof of the burning hotel into the arms of Luther, who is waiting to catch her.  “Now Molly, you be careful, because I’ve got a weak back.”  “Weak back or not, get ready Luther, cause here I come!”  There are some thrills at the end of the ride, with a collapsing bridge, an near-miss with an oncoming train, and a water splash.  It’s interesting to note that a fireman yells “Fire in the Hole!” near the end of the ride, which is the name of the ride at Silver Dollar City.

According to Cneil’s description, Fire In The Hole adds an additional element to the plot – the town is on fire because it’s being ransacked by bandits called “BaldKnobbers”.  As opposed to The Blazing Fury’s light-hearted theme, Fire In The Hole sounds more like a horror-themed ride.  The BaldKnobbers aren’t ordinary bandits.  They look more like villians out of a horror movie, with black hoods over their faces and something that looks like antennas sticking out of the tops of their heads.  There are scenes of BaldKnobbers pointing guns and even a cannon at the riders.  There are even dead townspeople lying around that have been done in by the BaldKnobbers.  I’d highly recommend that you check out Cneil’s blog to see photos and to learn more about Fire In The Hole.

Here’s the link to Cneil’s Silver Dollar City posts:  http://cneil.blogspot.com/search/label/Silver%20Dollar%20City?max-results=20