Fire In Las Vegas Fire

Fire has a long history of forcing changes in the United States and around the world. On November 21, 1980, the MGM Grand Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas had a fire that resulted in the death of eight-five individuals. According to the incident report from the fire, it was started by an ungrounded electrical circuit in a section of the main level of the casino called “The Deli”. It was discovered that the heat caused by the ungrounded wire heated enough to ignite the surrounding area. The fuel source with in the wall was wood, as the fire grew outside into the main casino floor, everything on the casino floor was used as fuel for the fire. The fire grew out of control quickly due to a number of building defects in the design. The first major defect was the lack of sprinkler systems in the main casino area.
This caused the smoke and the fire to move through out the hotel bypassing fire blocks. This also contributed to the death of so many victims. A third contributing defect was the fire alarm system failing to sound loud enough to alert guess and employees. While defect in the design contributed to the fire growth, the design did not hinder fire suppression operations. The report from the fire described hindering factors was falling debris from hotel occupants throwing items from their rooms. The main contributing factor that could of played the largest roll in controlling the fire was the lack of fire suppression system. Sprinklers systems have been proven to control fire growth and even extinguish fires. The MGM Grand Hotel fire will always sever as an important lesson to both safety and fire professionals for a long time to