There is an extensive history section in the book from the early pioneer days through the current corporate era and this week, I’m giving you a sneak peek at those pages with an exclusive excerpt about the MGM Grand Fire:
November 21st, 1980. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president, the hostages were still in Iran, and JR had been shot.
But in Las Vegas the "real world" seemed a million miles away. Then, as now, Vegas was a place where the harsh realities of every day life were held at bay by bright neon lights, slot machines, and showgirls.
All of that changed that November morning at around 7 a.m. when what should have been an inconsequential electrical fire at the MGM Grand turned into an inferno that killed and injured hundreds and caused millions of dollars worth of damage. And it all started in a pie case.
Buried in a wall in a small deli off the main casino, copper pipes supplying coolant to the case rubbed against an aluminum conduit containing wires supplying electricity for more than six years. Eventually the weaker aluminum wore through, exposing the wires - a spark was inevitable.
It’s unknown exactly when the spark happened. The leading theory is that it may have occurred when the pie case compressor turned back on after a 15-minute defrosting cycle that happened every night after the deli was closed, around midnight. The sudden start-up vibration could have been just enough to bump the copper pipes into the exposed wire.
Regardless, there was a spark and in the dark recesses of the wall, a fire began to burn. It smoldered for hours, sending heat up through the wall into the crawl space that ran from above the deli, above the casino, all the way to the front door of the hotel more than 400 feet away. As the ambient heat rose, the ignition point of the materials that made up the ceiling fell.
Then at shortly after 7 a.m., a maintenance worker opened the door of the deli. Air rushed into the room, feeding the smoldering beginnings. The wall, already tinder dry and superheated, burst into flame sending more heat and thick smoke up into the crawl space. Within minutes the entire room was ablaze.
With no firewalls to impede it in the crawl space, the fire rushed through the ceiling out into the casino. There was a moment, when the thick black smoke hung above the restaurant landing as the fire gained strength and the heat intensified. And then it pounced.
The casino ceiling burned first, but flames stretched to the floor. An enormous wall of fire rushed through the room, gobbling up carpeting and furnishings, plastics and fabrics, and anything and anyone in its path at an astounding rate - twenty feet per second. That’s approximately 14 miles per hour or about 5 times faster than most human beings can run.
The heat was incredible - 3200 degrees. Enough to melt metal. Enough to dissolve skin. In fact, it is estimated that as many as 14 people may have been killed in the first 90 seconds of the fire.
By the time the flames reached the front door of the casino, glass and metal were no match and no impediment. A fireball blew out the front of the door and swept through the Porte Cochere. A lone car, waiting to be parked, was incinerated in an instant. The heat of the fire reduced other cars in the adjacent parking lot to scorched wrecks, sitting on melted pools of rubber.
At this point, less than ten minutes had passed since the worker first noticed the flames. In that short amount of time the fire had destroyed the bulk of casino and killed more than a dozen people.
But that was only the beginning.
The fire and smoke quickly spread into the hotel guest tower which was at 99% capacity - nearly 5,000 people were estimated to be in the building at the time, most sleeping soundly in their rooms. The smoke or maybe the screaming woke them.
Guests rushed for the fire exits, but design elements that were intended to keep the structure safe in the event of an earthquake, turned the stairwells into chimneys as thick, poisonous smoke roiled up from the casino level and burst out the top of the hotel towers. Those on the lower floors managed to make it down or were rescued by fire engine ladders that could only reach so high. People on the upper floors went to the roof where an unprecedented chain of helicopters, both official rescue choppers and private aircraft flown by volunteers, lined up to take people to safety.
It was the middle floors that proved most deadly. The bulk of the victims were found on the 20th and 23rd floors, far out of reach of the flames but overcome by the unstoppable smoke.
When it was all over a few hours later, 87 people were dead and almost 700 were injured. The disaster ranks as the second worst hotel fire in US history.
The large loss of life, and the resultant media coverage the fire received, spurred government officials into action. The sprinkler systems that are found in most hotels and high-rises are a direct result of the MGM Grand fire.
The MGM reopened in July of 1981 with a state-of-the-art fire safety system and a dapper Cary Grant greeting guests. By touting their new system, the MGM Grand was able to return quickly to its glory days which remained until it was sold in 1985 and renamed Bally's.
