On Feb. 24, 2024, MouseTrapNews.com published an article claiming that Cinderella Castle, located at Orlando's Walt Disney World, had burned to the ground the previous day and was unsalvageable. The story began:
BREAKING: Cinderella Castle Burns to The Ground
Breaking news, Cinderella Castle burned to the ground yesterday. The castle caught fire early in the morning and sent smoke pouring throughout the Magic Kingdom.
The site posted a video covering the supposed fire to its TikTok page the following day, Feb. 25. Given Disney's massive influence, the story quickly took off — the TikTok video, which features supposed footage of the castle burning, has more than 21.5 million views.
There was only a brief snippet of video supposedly showing the castle burning down. Snopes compared that footage, which did not show active flames, to videos of firework shows at Cinderella Castle and determined that a firework show was the likely origin of the footage.
As for the photos showing flames within the castle, Snopes could not find an exact match using a reverse image search. We concluded that these photos were either edited by hand to add the flames or created by an AI art generator.
Users in the TikTok comments section had a variety of reactions. Some of their comments implied that they believed the story was real. Others left joking comments like, "I'm on the fire department, the clock struck midnight and the fire truck turned back in to a pumpkin before we could get to the castle." Of course, some users questioned the authenticity of the post entirely. "If the castle burned down then every single person In this world would know and it would be the 1st thing on any media platform," one user wrote.
Indeed, the story and video did not describe real-life events. Mouse Trap News describes itself as a Disney-themed satire blog, and notes in its about page that all of its stories are strictly fictional.
Mouse Trap News is the world's best satire and parody site. We write fake stories about Disney Parks stuff. From Disney Park announcements to Disney Hotel and resort news to made-up Disney partnerships, you can be assured that anything you read here is not true, real, or accurate, but it is fun. So technically our slogan The Moused Trusted Name in Disney News isn't true, but we thought it was creative and funny, so we are running with it.
This isn't the first time Snopes has covered a claim about things happening to Cinderella Castle. We previously reported on a different satire article claiming that Disney had decided to remove the iconic castle overnight.
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.