There was a fire in a Las Vegas Strip casino yesterday. From KLAS:
A mattress fire at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas Sunday afternoon sent one person to the hospital.
Clark County Fire Department spokesman Dan Kulin says the blaze was confined to a room on the 25th floor of the hotel. The fire was put out by the hotel sprinkler system. Guests reported hearing a fire alarm accompanied by a voice that informed them to evacuate the hotel.
This is partially notable because, back in 1980, the then-MGM Grand was the site of one of the deadliest fires in US high-rise history–a fire exacerbated by the lack of sprinklers on the casino floor.
That the fire was extinguished by sprinklers in an almost routine fashion shows how far high-rise fire safety has come in the past thirty years. The MGM disaster was followed about three months later by a fire at the Las Vegas Hilton that killed seven, and did a great deal to undercut the image of Las Vegas hotels as safe, with good reason.
Since then, I would guess that many visitors to Las Vegas have the opposite problem: they might be too confident in their safety. Anyone else remember those photos from the Monte Carlo poker room during that casino’s rooftop blaze, when the players were watching the building they were in burning on CNN?
So thankfully no one was seriously hurt in yesterday’s blaze, but this is a good time to remember that, when you hear a fire alarm, start heading towards the exits. It might like like you’ve got plenty of time to get there if you have to, but I imagine its much more difficult to get outside when the lights power’s failed and the room is filling with smoke.
Also, with a rarely-reported hotel suicide in the news today, this isn’t the best day for Strip casino public relations, is it?