Moulin Rouge fire report expected

Wednesday, June 4, 2003 | 9:58 a.m.

Federal and local fire experts were expected to announce today preliminary results and the direction of their investigation into the fire that burned the historic Moulin Rouge casino and showroom down to the ground.

"The on-scene work is completed and we are reviewing all the other information," Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent Joe Riehl said Tuesday.

After members of his department said on Thursday, the day of the fire, that the cause of blaze would probably never be determined, Las Vegas Fire Department Chief David Washington requested the help of the ATF's team of fire investigators.

The ATF agents have highly trained arson detection dogs and sophisticated laboratory analysis techniques at their disposal, Washington said.

The federal and local officials could decide to keep the national investigators in Las Vegas for further examination of evidence found at the fire, Riehl said.

If the response team is released from the investigation, responsibility for the investigation reverts to the Las Vegas Fire Department, he said.

While fire investigators searched through the burned-out casino shell Tuesday, about a dozen of 60 residents staying in three downtown motels were allowed to return to their apartments at the Moulin Rouge, which sit behind the burned-out casino.

"The city will have to determine whether it is safe for the tenants to go back," Riehl said.

"There is still an issue of electricity to the apartments," Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said Tuesday night.

Apartments without electricity, without emergency exits or those in danger from an unstable wall cannot be inhabited, Paul Wilkens, building and safety director for the city of Las Vegas, said.

Szymanski said late Tuesday that Moulin Rouge managers were trying to find enough apartments for the displaced tenants.

The downtown motel owners had extended the deadline for people to move out from Wednesday to Friday, Szymanski said.