Couple things that would make WR better:
1) don't show it to the player before they get close to it
2) have the place "burn out" after the event is completed
3) decouple spreading of the fire from Goblin raid - the WR still was raded, but spreading of the fire should be tied to something that happens when player arrives at the scene. Mayhaps a structure damaged during raid collapses starting the fire. Maybe Flaming Fists do something while trying to get inside that causes the fire. Something that would make it less obvious that things have been frozen in time, waiting for PC to show up.
None of this would resolve the basic problem: that once arrived, you can spend an unlimited number of hours doing something else, and then come back to find the situation unchanged, as long as you do not take a long rest, while spending 30 seconds to take a long rest will immediately make this fail.
Yes, and no. I doubt players would be likely to come close to the location, and not engage NPCs - at which point the event triggers. There aren't really any distractions in that area that would distract players from engaging with the event. As such I think the amount of players who would come to WR, see that it's on fire and decide to move on and return later should be minimal. Of course, you could treat players decision to leave after getting the glimpse of the location as a roleplaying choice and set up appropriate triggers: If the game supports it, you could make it so that if the player after coming close enough to the WR, leaves the vacinity, than the WR switches to burn out state, the key NPCs inside are dead. That would of course, require new interactions with soldiers in front of WR. You would want to be careful with that, though - you wouldn't want players to pass nearby the WR, not get that the place is on fire and than return and get yelled at for not helping.
The point I am trying to make, is that if they want Larian could make things feel much better, than they have been in EA. You don't need to implement an actual ticking clock to create a feeling of time passing, or have an events that feel urgent. Maybe they did made it better for 1.0. One can hope.
