A life-sized animatronic dinosaur – once the world’s largest – went extinct Thursday when it burned to a crisp after catching on fire at the New Jersey dinosaur park it lives in.

The 90-foot-long Argentinosaurus, which is featured at the Field Station: Dinosaurs outdoor exhibit in Overpeck County Park in Leonia, was left completely charred down to its skeleton from the afternoon fire.

A welder was putting the finishing touches on the robotic dinosaur ahead of the exhibit’s opening day over Memorial Day when a spark from a torch hit the dinosaur, causing it to burst into flames, said Guy Gsell, the executive producer of the exhibition.

“[It’s] not the best day in the dinosaur park world,” said Gsell, who added that dinosaur caught fire when the welder was inside the pre-historic beast welding the final piece onto its front legs when the spark flew off striking the non-fire retardant foam inside.

“Even though he took every precaution…the fire got away from him when a spark hit the dinosaur. And the dinosaur burned until the fire department got here and put it out,” said Gsell, who said the incident is a first for the dinosaur exhibit.

Gsell added that, “The good news is nobody got hurt and it only happened on a day we were working.”

The exhibit, which relocated from Seacacus, is complete with 33 other life-sized dinosaurs. None of other dinosaurs were damaged.

“The artists are all working on them and they look fantastic, and the park is coming together,” said Gsell.

The Argentinosaurus was built in 2002 and at the time it was the largest animatronic dinosaur in the world, but a larger one was built the following year and is currently at a theme park near Cleveland.

The theme park will not be rebuilding the Argentinosaurus, but Gsell looked on the bright side.

“There are dinosaurs that have been discovered that are bigger than the Argentinosaurus, so maybe we’ll get one of those guys in there and we’ll have the biggest again,” he said.

The Leonia Police Department’s official Twitter account tweeted after the blaze, “Report of a dinosaur fire today. That was definitely a first for us. Sadly the dinosaur did not survive.”

The account then tweeted along with another photo of the unharmed dinosaurs near the flaming Argentinosaurus, “These dinosaurs survived, however they refused to give a witness statement.”