Senior center fire was set

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 | 9:41 a.m.

Someone set the massive fire that consumed a vacant senior assisted living center Friday, but investigators don't know yet whether it was accidental or intentional, authorities said Monday.

When Wren, an arson-sniffing dog, walked through the rubble of the site at 4550 E. Washington Ave., near Lamb Boulevard, she found some hot spots, prompting investigators to label the cause as "incendiary," Las Vegas Fire Department officials said.

Not all incendiary fires are arson, fire officials explained Monday as city crews, operating heavy equipment, knocked down much of what was left from Friday's three-alarm blaze. Iron fencing also was erected by fire officials to keep people out of the area.

The fire caused an estimated at $2.5 million to $5 million in damage to the planned 77-unit senior home.

"Right now it can be anything, including vagrants cooking dinner on the floor or kids smoking dope in the building," Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said, noting that such activities were alleged by neighbors who told investigators they observed such actions by trespassers who frequented the site.

"With arson you have to have intent to harm using fire," Szymanski said.

Szymanski said vagrants and others who commit such acts do not intend to burn down the buildings because they benefit from free use of them, and thus such acts are not labeled as arson.

"There was a lot of materials stored on the site including paint thinners, paint, sheet rock, lumber and roofing materials that added fuel to the fire," Szymanski said of Friday's blaze, noting that the origin was somewhere in the center of the structure.

The building has been vacant, with an employee of the developer showing up occasionally to do some work, Szymanski said. But for the most part little has been done on the site for about a year, he said.

Clark County assessor records show the property is owned by Assisted Living Center et al., care of E. Cook, with a Las Vegas address.

A woman answering the phone at the home of Everett Cook at the address listed in the county document said he did not want to give a statement to the news media.

Investigators don't yet know whether the building was insured and if so for how much, Szymanski said. He said the property was purchased by its present owners for $2 million.

The city fire department ordered what was left of the building -- concrete reinforcements around elevator stalls, huge brick support pillars, iron ceiling beams and a shaky but still standing west wall -- to be demolished.

The city in turn will bill the owner or his insurance company for the work.

Fire inspectors were directing cleanup operations because they wanted to preserve ground-floor areas under the hot spots sniffed out in the piles of debris by Wren, Szymanski said.

"Investigators want to take a closer look at those areas," Szymanski said.

No one was injured in the fire that started about 6:30 p.m. Friday and was fought by 107 firefighters. The blaze was confined to one building, Szymanski said.

In addition to the county's arson dog, investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined city firefighters in the investigation.

A similar fire at the Firenze luxury apartments construction site Sept. 4 at Russell Road and Boulder Highway, where $10 million to $15 million in damage was reported, was also incendiary, Szymanski said.

There have been four construction site fires in the past 18 months within Las Vegas city limits, Szymanski said.