Grease, propane fed casino blaze

Jennifer Knight

Friday, May 2, 2003 | 10:03 a.m.

Tips for handling grease fires:

During the early morning hours on Tuesday a fry cook working at the Mountain View Casino and Bowl was heating up oil when it ignited, said Deputy Fire Marshall Anthony L. Capucci of the Nevada Department of Public Safety.

While the cook made failed attempts to put the fire out with an extinguisher and then flour, the fire spread behind the stove and raced up an oil-soaked wall and up to the attic within minutes, Capucci said.

"No one realized that the fire had gone above their heads," Capucci said during Thursday's press conference. "That's because the fire had found the least path of resistance and had gotten up into the attic."

The fire began around 3:45 a.m. on Tuesday. Timing played a critical part in the destruction because Clark County dispatchers were not called until 4 a.m. By the time firefighters arrived at the casino at 4:07 a.m. on South Pahrump Valley Boulevard, it was fully engulfed and a series of other events made putting it out even more difficult.

The intense heat caused by the flames melted a valve off lines fed by a 1,000-gallon propane tank. Fuel spewing from the line acted like a blowtorch on raw steel beams, causing them to melt.

Difficulties presented by the intense heat were exacerbated by winds that fanned the flames and water pressure problems from so many firefighters turning hoses on.

"Each time an engine hooked up to the water we were robbing the system of water pressure," said Scott Lewis, Pahrump's fire chief.

Nye County Sheriff Anthony DeMeo said rumors that the sprinkler system in the casino wasn't working correctly are "100 percent false."

"The sprinkler system worked as designed," Capucci said. "That fire was more than the sprinkler system could handle."

Capucci estimated that in order to twist the steel, the fire reached 2,800 degrees farenheit.

"When you splashed water on it, it helped," Capucci said. "We just didn't have enough water at the time."

Only one portion of the casino, added on in 1999, still stands today. Damage is estimated at $15 million.

Officials say the building's age played a role in its collapse.

The Mountain View was built in 1978 with less stringent codes than are required today.

New construction on a casino that size would require steel beams to be coated with cement, which gives the structure the ability to stand up under intense heat. Carpets today are required to be more flame retardant.

The fire could only have been prevented one of two ways. Had the casino changed ownership, it would have given fire marshals the ability to require the building to be updated according to recent code, Capucci said.

The other way was through education. Simple grease fires, he said, can be put out by spraying the fire with an extinguisher and by covering the pot with a lid to starve the fire of oxygen.

"Thankfully, we're talking about a building being destroyed," Lewis said. "There were no lives lost and no injuries."