Depending on whom you believe, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Hogwarts set was either burned to the ground or lightly scorched on Friday by a fire sparked during the filming of one of the movie’s climactic battle scenes. Nobody was killed or injured (and none of the cast members you care about were present at the time of the blaze, anyway), but the Coventry Telegraph reports it took fire crews 40 minutes to put out the flames. Says an anonymous source: “We were shooting the scenes where Hogwarts gets [spoiler spoiler spoiler]. But fire managed to catch hold of the set and it went up in flames. It was completely out of control at one point.â€
A less excitable Warner Bros. spokesperson tells the Watsford Observer, “It was a big special effects scene. Unfortunately, there was a small fire as a result of that … The actual set was due to be rebuilt anyway. The scene was where the set was being destroyed and then it was to be rebuilt for a new scene, as part of a battle for Deathly Hallows: Part Two. “
The blaze was extinguished before it could spread to the surrounding Forbidden Forest, and the pyrotechnics crew responsible has been forced to write “I must not burn down Hogwarts†a thousand times using the Blood Quill.
Harry Potter’s Hogwarts set destroyed as explosions trigger blaze [Coventry Telegraph UK via /Film]
’Business as usual’ on Harry Potter set after fire at Leavesden Studios [Watsford Observer UK]