Las Vegas toll at least 80
A fire that spread from a kitchen sent suffocating smoke billowing through all 26 floors of the MGM Grand hotel and casino yesterday, and authorities said at least 80 persons were killed and 300 injured. More than 1000 guests were forced to the roof of the building for a perilous rescue by helicopters.
Clark County Coroner Otto Ravenholt said most of the victims died of smoke inhalation on upper floors, far above the reach of the fire department's nine- story rescue ladders.
Officials said a fire alarm amplifier was knocked out and only three floors of the hotel had sprinkler systems.
Fire Capt. Wayne Littlefield said one elderly couple, "holding hands," jumped to their deaths from the 17th floor.
Officials estimated as many as 8000 people, including 4500 to 5000 guests and an undetermined number of hotel employees, were in the hotel when the fire broke out at 7:15 a.m. (PST).
There were 24 New England residents at the hotel, but all were reported safe last night.
It was the worst fire in Las Vegas and the second worst hotel fire in American history, exceeded only by a Dec. 7, 1946, fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta that killed 119.
Fire Capt. Ralph Dinsman said the fire apparently started in an exhaust fan in the kitchen of a ground-floor delicatessen of the hotel near where the casino is also located. He said flames spread quickly to the casino and up through the "eye in the sky" - an open catwalk above the floor used to monitor gambling.
Clark County Fire Chief Roy Parrish said, "We were told a wall of fire fell down in the casino." He ruled out arson.
Some survivors said no alarm sounded to warn guests of the danger. Parrish said the fire apparently destroyed the amplifiers - which were in the basement - on a manually activated alarm system.
Within 10 minutes the fire gutted the 140-yard-long casino, where about 10 bodies were found. Most of the others died of smoke inhalation above the 20th floor, Parrish said.
"I opened the door and people were shouting - What should we do? What should we do?" said Keith A. Beverton of Woodland Hills, Calif. "It was death, absolute death in there. I closed the door and the air in my room was so thick that I was having trouble breathing."
Dinsman said the flames were controlled after two hours and apparently were confined to the lower two floors of the pale-pink granite hotel, one of the world's largest with 2076 rooms.
Some guests on upper floors who couldn't get outside fled to the roof, where helicopters evacuated them. Others trapped in their rooms by dense smoke got fresh air by using furniture to break sealed windows or crammed onto balconies screaming for help.
Guests who could fled out the doors and wandered on the 43-acre grounds. Many were barefoot and in smoke-blackened nightclothes, weeping and dazed. Others were carried out by firefighters and construction workers using the two-handed firefighter's carry. Paramedics and doctors, some in hospital scrub clothes, worked feverishly over a number of victims who were sprawled in the middle of the four-lane street.
"I just saw people running out from the front. They were coming out like flies," said Ray Hutchison, a gardener who was working outside. "The casino girls were coming out with cash drawers in their hands and dealers were running out stuffing chips in their pockets."
Dinsman said that the hotel's only sprinklers were in the basement, first floor and 26th floor. Parrish said all other areas were under 24-hour-a-day supervision, and such areas were not required under the fire code to have sprinklers.
The MGM, which opened seven years ago at a cost of $106 million, was in the process of adding 780 rooms and 33,000 square feet of banquet and meeting rooms. Rooms currently go for between $55 and $207 a night. 