Construction site damaged by fire

Jace Radke

Wednesday, July 1, 1998 | 2:10 a.m.

A three alarm fire at an apartment construction site had covered parts of Southeast Las Vegas in smoke as Clark County and Henderson firefighters responded to the blaze Wednesday morning.

Approximately 20 fire trucks responded to the Avalon apartment construction site off Seven Hills Road one mile west of Eastern at Lake Mead Drive.

Fire Fighters arrived at approximately 8:15 a.m. to find two 32 unit buildings on fire. The buildings in the complex were partially finished and ready to be stuccoed.

"The crews did a great job of stopping the fire from going into a domino effect and jumping to other buildings," said Clark County Fire Department spokesman Steve La-Sky. "Construction burns very fast, and there were hot spots popping up on a building just north of the fire. They did an incredible job of knocking those (hot spots) down and containing the fire."

No construction workers or fire fighters were injured in the fire, La-Sky said.

The fire was under control, but La-Sky said it would take into the afternoon Wednesday for the crews to be sure that no new hot spots would spring up.

"At this point it's hard to tell about the damage," La-Sky said. "The investigators will be able to come in once all the hot spots are down."

Wind coupled with a lack of windbreaks in the relatively undeveloped area could have contributed to the fire's growth, La-Sky said.

"We were really lucky with the wind," La-Sky said. "If the wind had kicked up we may have had some problems. It is an extremely hot fire, and the radiant heat was incredible."