Monte Carlo Fire Damage Much Less Than Reported.
There was a big fire at the Monte Carlo hotel the other day. I was working & had the TV on in the background. Just happened to turn around & saw “Breaking News! Fire at the Monte Carlo!”
I went “Uh oh that’s not good.” The top part of the hotel was on fire!
At first it looked pretty bad. Fires at the tops of tall buildings are never good. With the way the roofs are constructed here the firefighters had a hard time getting to the fire. What you see is mostly a facade and the actual roof is a few feet lower than the actual “top.”
They literally had to break some of the windows & hang out of the windows with the hoses! It took a little while for them to knock it down. The whole thing lasted maybe 2 hours. They also totally shut down traffic on the Strip as a precaution & to also let the emergency vehicles access the scene.
The entire hotel was also evacuated with the guests being brought over to the MGM Grand Arena as a holding area. They were put up in other MGM properties for the night & allowed today to retrieve their belongings.
It was reported that 17 people were taken to area hospitals, mostly for smoke inhilation. Luckily there was no deaths. It could have been a lot worse considering how bad it looked.
All of the media during the coverage reminded us about the 1980 MGM Grand fire, which killed 85 & injured hundreds. To this day it remains the worst disaster in Nevada history & definitely the darkest moment for Las Vegas.
I had a chance to go by today & check out the scene for myself, as there was no way yesterday anyone could have gotten anywhere near the place. Luckily the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as was being reported. Just the facade on the very top is what had burned & there is no structual damage. Also there was some damage & most likely water damage to some of the rooms on the upper levels due to the close proximity to the fire.
As of this writing the hotel and casino are still closed. It was reported that it’ll remain closed until they either remove or secure the facade, which might take a while.
These pics were taked from the NY-NY parking garage, which gave me a great vantage point to survey the damage.
