Investigators sift through debris at deadly Las Vegas fire
INVESTIGATORS WERE going room by room yesterday at a downtown Las Vegas apartment building, where six people were killed and 13 injured in a fire over the weekend, to determine what started the blaze.
City officials said at a news conference yesterday that investigators were also looking into claims from some residents that smoke or fire alarms weren’t working properly and some residents were using stoves to stay warm because the building didn’t have heat.
Las Vegas City Councilman Cedric Crear, who represents the neighbourhood mixing downtown entertainment and bars with ageing apartment motels, said he assured residents that the city would conduct a thorough investigation.
“Hopefully, justice will be served because there seemed to be a lot of discrepancies going on at that facility,” Crear said.
The predawn fire appeared to start Saturday around a stove in a first-floor unit of the building, forcing some residents to jump down from upper-floor windows to escape thick smoke that was blocking exits.
THREE DEAD
Firefighters began treating the injured and helping rescue people hanging or jumping out of windows, according to Las
Vegas Fire & Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski. He said that three people were found dead inside the building and three outside after the fire was extinguished.
It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone died from falling or jumping out of windows.
Rick Jones with the Clark County Coroner’s Office said yesterday that the office did not have any information to release about the six people who died. He said the office was still waiting to confirm the identities of the victims and contact their family members.
Robert Nolan, the Las Vegas city fire marshal, said Monday that there had been past code complaints over the years at the Alpine Motel Apartments. Nolan said all of those complaints had been addressed within a week or two by the owner and none was pending at the time of the fire.
He said the fire marshal’s office was last at the building in May 2017 after a complaint that the fire alarm system wasn’t working properly, but it was fixed within a week.