Blue Fire is arguably the most important roller coaster for Mack Rides.
Located at Europa Park, this launch coaster alerted the industry that Mack was capable
and willing to build major thrill coasters. This ride would not only be cloned several times,
but it was also the gateway to Mack constructing larger and even wilder coasters down the road.
Not only is Blue Fire a significant ride for Mack, but it’s one of the premier rides at Europa Park.
Find out why in this review! Mack has been building roller
coasters since the late 1950s. Through 2010, the company was most well-known for powered coasters
and wild mice coasters. Mack didn’t offer a true thrill coaster at this point. Arguably
their most intense model was a water coaster! Europa Park is one of the largest amusement parks
in Europe. This German park is owned by the Mack family. As a result, 8 of their first 9 roller
coasters were built by Mack themselves. The one coaster that wasn’t from Mack was Silver Star,
a B&M hyper coaster that opened as Europe’s tallest and fastest roller coaster.
In 2009, the park unveiled Blue Fire. This was not only Mack’s largest roller coaster to date,
but it was also the company’s first launch coaster. Blue Fire features a linear synchronous
motor, or LSM, launch. While Mack launches have received a lot of flack from coaster
enthusiasts for their lack of power, they are a fast and reliable way to get trains up to speed.
This ride system has now been used 16 times worldwide. The Blue Fire layout has cloned
several times, and it’s not hard to see why. The layout is very diverse between that launch,
4 inversions, and airtime hills. The layout has been used 10 times, although one of the instances
was Steel Taipan at Dreamworld, which converted the original launch into a swing launch.
Mack also debuted a new ride vehicle and restraint system for Blue Fire.
These trains are incredibly comfortable between the seat contouring and overhead lapbar. The
seats are also elevated, which grants riders a greater sense of freedom during the ride.
This seat and restraint combo has been used on any of their new thrill coasters including their
xtreme spinning coasters and hyper coasters. Beyond the technical merits of Blue Fire, the
ride is very well themed. It immediately became the anchor attraction in a new Iceland area.
The bright blue track looks amazing against the sky and the course has some rockwork as well.
The ride is sponsored by an energy company and the ride is themed to harvesting natural gas.
It’s a bit of a corporate theme, but I don’t mind since the ride looks good and features a relevant
dark ride scene that I’ll talk about later. Blue Fire routinely has one of the longest
lines at Europa Park. It’s often posted at 40-50 minutes on summer days, but I often wait 10-15
minutes less than the posted wait. Blue Fire is a capacity machine. The ride runs up to 4 trains
simultaneously, each seating up to 20 riders. This ride has separate load and unload stations plus
fast operations, so the line rarely stops moving. There is a way to skip the line. For many years,
the ride had a single rider line that would usually be a 5-10 minute wait. But in my 2021
visit, this queue had transformed into one for the Virtual Line. Europa Park had a free skip-the-line
pass service on their mobile app. Blue Fire was one of the rides available. You could reserve a
10-minute window for one ride at a time. Spots for Blue Fire were some of the hardest to snag,
but I just kept refreshing until I saw one since it was a massive timesaver.
The standby queue features a separate queue line for the front at the end.
This line is decently long and can add another 15-20 minutes to your wait. Alternatively,
you can wait for the other 9 rows. You can try requesting one of these rows, but the request
isn’t always honored. As for my favorite seat, I like the front and back evenly on this coaster.
The operations in Blue Fire’s station are a work of art. Guests put their loose articles in train
specific double sided bins, so there’s no logjam on the unload platform. And you have no seatbelts,
so the simple lap bars are a breeze to check. These trains have two additional features you
don’t necessarily get on the other Mack launch coasters. The better of the two is on-board
audio. The ride’s soundtrack is awesome, although it can be a little hard to hear.
The other feature is a pulse reader on the handle bars. This feature doesn’t always work,
but I don’t think it adds much to the experience to be honest.
Once dispatched, you round a corner and enter the show scene. You’re in a gas factory. You
have a few animatronic workers, but it’s clear something is wrong. Lights flash and sirens blare.
Soon after, the doors open and you start accelerating down the launch track.
Blue Fire accelerates the train from 0 to 62 mph or 100 kph in 2.5 seconds. Those are respectable
acceleration figures. And of the Mack launches I’ve experienced, this one is the most powerful.
It has a decent kick to it. It still can’t match the power of the Intamin or Gerstlauer LSM launch,
but it’s on par with a good Premier Rides launch.
The launch ends by shooting through a tunnel and then navigating this massive 125 foot
or 38 meter tall overbank. Because you slow down at the apex, you get some lateral hangtime. You
get more towards the front, but the back gets a little whip on the descent to compensate.
After shooting through another rock tunnel, you get some decent Gs in the valley.
Then you navigate a large vertical loop. You also slow down towards the top of this element,
producing some hangtime. This is again more pronounced towards the front.
Next is a snappy right hand turn. Not only do you breeze through this turn, but it
also has an awesome headchopper with Wodan. You then twist upwards into the mid-course
brake run, getting some positive Gs on the way. And if you’re up front, you’ll also get
some floater airtime. Then Blue Fire proceeds into the second half, which is even better.
The drop off the mid-course gives solid floater airtime for those in the back.
You then navigate a twisted horseshoe roll, which are two corkscrews broken up by a banked turn.
Both inversions offer hangtime. You again get more hangtime up front, but those in the back
get some whip as well to compensate. I also like how this element is surrounded by rockwork.
Blue Fire then treats riders to an S-hill that pierces through the vertical loop. This element
looks pretty slow off-ride, but it does give a little floater airtime throughout the train.
You then round a corner and experience Blue Fire’s best element and one of the best inversions in the
world. This inline twist is downright wild. It viscously flings the train through it,
generating incredible hangtime, whip, and laterals simultaneously. It feels like a
slower version of the Mosasaurus Roll. You then round one final lackluster turn
and hop into the brake run, ending the 3465 foot or 1056 meter long coaster.
And even after a decade of operation, Blue Fire is still immaculately smooth.
So what would I rate Blue Fire? I would give this coaster an 8.5 out of 10. This is a really good
coaster. It’s so well-rounded. It has a good launch between the theatrics and strength.
Then the main layout has a mix of mild airtime hills and 4 great inversions
with that final one being a truly elite moment. The coaster is super reridable.
Blue Fire may not be as intense as other major thrill coasters outside of that final inversion,
but the ride is just pure fun and easily one of the best rides at Europa Park.
And this ride allowed Mack to finetune their craft on future thrill coasters.
Without this ride, it’s unlikely we’d have the newer and more revered coasters from Mack.
So those are my thoughts on Blue Fire at Europa Park.
What are your thoughts on this launch coaster? Do you agree this was an important coaster for Mack?
Let me know down in the comments. If you enjoyed this review, I’d appreciate it if
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roller coaster and amusement park videos here at Canobie Coaster. Thanks for watching!