TDSounds

The enormous fire that devastated the barracaoes of Grande Rio, Portela and Uniao da Ilha has destroyed more than the costumes and floats.

Grande Rio's barracao was completely gutted. The samba school had recently opened a VIP restaurant there with the latest in modern kitchen equipment. Most of the trophies that the samba school had won were also in the barracao, along with computers, photos, movies, and much of the school's collection of historical records. Works of art, quality furniture (from Paris) and a hydromassage pool  also went up in flames. And as well as almost all of the costumes for this year over 300 special masks, sent from New York to complete the bateria costumes, were also destroyed.

The samba school directors reckon that at least 15 million R$ of property were destroyed in the fire.