Apartments evacuated after false fire reports

Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005 | 9:15 a.m.

Authorities evacuated 200 units of the Cambridge Towers apartment complex near Flamingo Road and Twain Avenue on Monday night after fire officials received incorrect reports of numerous fires in the building, the Clark County Fire Department said this morning.

Although arson originally was suspected, the fire department established that there was no arson or even any major fire in the complex, said Bob Leinbach, spokesman for the Clark County Fire Department.

"Separately it wasn't anything and taken together it didn't amount to much," Leinbach said.

Metro Police officers went door to door at the 10-story apartment building on Cambridge Avenue about 9 p.m. and sent residents across the street to the Cambridge Recreation Center.

But Leinbach said the residents were evacuated mostly because of the many rumors spreading through the building that arson was to blame for a small garbage chute fire.

He added that a collection of small, unrelated incidents led residents to initially suspect an arsonist was running loose in the complex.

There was one small trash chute fire on the 7th floor of the complex, but it was extinguished by the time the fire department arrived on scene, he said. The fire department established that the fire was not caused by arson.

Chute fires, a regular occurrence, are often caused by lit cigarette butts left in the trash.

One floor below, authorities found some ash from the remains of a piece of paper, and on the second floor of the complex a sprinkler malfunctioned, he said.

"We decided these were not related," he said.

The fire department sent one engine to the scene, an investigation team and one inspector, Leinbach said.