Casino fire wounds two workers

Woody Baird

Monday, May 7, 2001 | 10:57 a.m.

ROBINSONVILLE, Miss. -- A fire broke out at the Grand Casino and Hotel, scorching the outside of the huge gambling hall. Two workers were treated for smoke inhalation.

The fire, reported about 6:15 a.m. Friday, prompted evacuation of the casino and the nearby 1,300-room hotel. The casino reopened shortly after noon, said Ashley Skellie with the Mississippi Gaming Commission.

The Grand Casino is one of the largest of 10 casinos in Tunica County, about 20 miles south of Memphis, Tenn.

The fire started on the third floor where a neon sign blew out, catching the facade on fire, said Barry Harper, chief of the North Tunica Fire Department. The outside of the building at the north entrance was blackened by the blaze.

The fire, which was quickly put out, did not spread into the casino but some smoke did. Two employees were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation and another who has asthma was taken to a hospital for observation and later released, Harper said.

The casino has eight restaurants, 2,800 employees and 140,000 square feet of gambling space.

Casino spokeswoman Jackie Ward said the casino had shut down to ensure that money and gambling devices were kept safe.

"Once we had the ladder set up, we had the fire out in about 10 minutes," Harper said. "The front of the building is scorched heavily. It looks a lot worse than it really is."

There was no estimate of damage to the north entrance. The casino has another entrance on the south side and can be reached through the hotel.

Harper said all the casinos in Tunica County are equipped with sprinkler systems and have their own water supplies for such emergencies.

Harper said he did not know what material the facade was made of. He said fire began to burn down once it reached the metal underneath the facade.

He said about 40 firefighters from his department and others in Tunica and nearby DeSoto County responded to the fire.

The fire was the third at a Mississippi casino/resort in the past two years.

In March, a fire at the Copa Casino in Gulfport forced the evacuation of about 200 guests and 70 employees, but left no extensive damage.

That fire started when a construction worker using a cutting torch ignited insulation in a wall on a deck of the ship used mostly by employees, said officials. It was contained to a storage room.

In February 2000, a burning cigarette was blamed for a weekend fire at Harrah's Casino and Hotel in Vicksburg. The fire started in a housekeeping cart on the sixth floor of in the hotel. There were no injuries.

The cart was parked against a wall underneath a fire sprinkler. When the fire started the sprinkler, the cart was doused with water.

Mississippi has 30 state-regulated casinos and one run by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in Neshoba County.