Updated with video: The skeleton of Big Tex is being removed from Fair Park after a fire consumed the mammoth icon of the State Fair of Texas this morning, just days after his 60th birthday.
4:56 update: YouTube user 'big tex jr' uploaded a video showing the entire conflagration.
Fair spokeswoman Sue Gooding says she doesn't know the cause of the fire but did note electrical controls move Big Tex's mouth and head. Gooding says no one was injured in the fire and added that she expects Big Tex to be back for next year's state fair.
2:30 update: Here's a recording of fire dispatch responding to the 'Big Tex' fire, courtesy of Radioreference.com
12:45 p.m. update: KERA's Bill Zeeble reports that worker have taken down the charred remains of Big Tex and are trucking them out of Fair Park in "what looks like a kind of funeral procession."
Our original post continues:
All that's left of ‘Big Tex’ are his hands and skeletal frame.
Mitchell Glieber, the fair's vice president of marketing, tells WFAA that the fire may have started with an electrical short.
"There's obviously some electronics inside of Big Tex that leads to the ability for his mouth to move when he speaks," Glieber said. "I believe there was an electrical short, but that hasn't been confirmed or investigated."
No one was hurt in the quick-moving fire, which was doused.
We will have updates as they arrive.
Here's a short audio profile of the voice of Big Tex that KERA's Jeff Whittington produced a few years ago.
