Man, 2-year-old girl rescued from fire

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 | 10:39 a.m.

A Las Vegas apartment and a Henderson house were damaged by fires during the Memorial Day weekend, fire department spokesmen said.

Las Vegas Fire & Rescue crews and Metro Police officers prevented a fire from becoming fatal in an eastern Las Vegas apartment late Saturday night when they rescued a 2-year-old girl and a man in his 30s from flames that ignited from food left cooking on a stove.

Firefighters arrived shortly after 11:45 p.m. Saturday to find a downstairs apartment in flames, part of a two-story, four-unit apartment building in the 2900 block of Marlin Avenue.

Callers told firefighters that they believed people were trapped inside the apartment.

Neighbors had used a garden hose to spray water into the apartment as two Metro officers pulled a man from the burning building.

Firefighters entered the apartment and found the garden hose had doused most of the flames. They searched the apartment and found the child lying on a bed in a back bedroom, not breathing.

Both the child and the man were taken to University Medical Center. Paramedics revived the girl on the way to the hospital, fire officials said. She was released from the hospital on Sunday.

The man was admitted to the University Medical Center, where he was treated for smoke inhalation.

Fire investigators discovered that a pot cooking on an electric stove started the fire, producing dense smoke in the apartment. The fire was confined to one unit. Smoke alarms found in the apartment were not operating, fire investigators said.

About 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Henderson Fire Department crews arrived at a home in the 100 block of Hexham Drive, a single-story home near Basic High School.

Flames were shooting from the rear of the home, but the owners were not at home, Battalion Chief Doug Koopman said.