Fire Forces
Evacuation of Casino
A three-alarm fire at the
Aztec Inn, 2200 Las Vegas Blvd. South just north
of Sahara Avenue forced the evacuation of the casino
and caused an estimated $200,000 in damage but no
injuries late Wednesday, fire officials said.
It was the third fire at the hotel in several
weeks, but fire investigators don't believe the
three fires are related, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue
spokesman Tim Szymanski said.
This latest fire was by far the worst of the three
at the hotel, which is across the street from the
Stratosphere. Firefighters were called to the hotel
by its security chief at 11:38 p.m., Szymanski said.
"The security chief for the Aztec Inn told
fire investigators that he was in the casino when
someone ran in and told him the hotel was on fire.
When he went outside and checked, he saw flames
on the second floor of the hotel," Szymanski
said.
Reinforcements were needed and before the fire
was under control 45 minutes later, more than 100
firefighters from Las Vegas Fire & Rescue and
Clark County Fire Department were at the scene,
Szymanski said.
Smoke drifted south along the Strip and a gray
cloud hung over the Sahara and Riviera hotels into
the early morning hours.
Traffic between Sahara and St. Louis Avenue was
diverted from Las Vegas Boulevard while firefighters
and their vehicles lined both sides of the Strip.
Firefighters changed air tanks and rested under
palm trees growing in the median as they battled
the fire.
About 4:20 a.m. today Szymanski sent out a press
release stating that fire had mostly been in the
attic area of the two-story wood-frame hotel, which
had been vacant because it was undergoing renovations.
Fire investigators want to talk to more people
today to try to determine whether work on the building
may be related to the fire, Szymanski said.
In addition to the attic of the hotel, the fire
and water used on it damaged two rooms on the second
floor and a stairwell from the first floor to the
second floor, according to the press release.
The previous fires at the hotel involved a mattress
ablaze in one of the rooms, which was quickly extinguished,
and an electrical fire in that was smoldering in
the closet of a room on June 22.
Also, in January 2001, two people were treated
at University Medical Center after a flash fire
in one of the Aztec's rooms.
According to the records on the Clark County assessor
Web site, the Aztec Inn is owned by Sahara Meadows
Properties Inc. That corporation's officers are
Las Vegans Dr. Donald J. Dombrowski, president,
and Gary Vause, secretary and treasurer, according
to records on the Nevada Secretary of State's Web
site.
While firefighters were dousing the fire into early
Thursday morning, Metro Police diverted pedestrians
along the Strip east of the Aztec to Paradise Road.
Many of the pedestrians stopped to watch the action
while they sipped tall icy drinks.
Jeremy Judd, a Henderson resident who took the
day off from selling scuba diving equipment to enjoy
the Las Vegas Strip Wednesday night, was part of
the crowd that watched firefighters battle the blaze.
"I was just hanging out and saw the flames.
It was smoking pretty good," he said.
The flames were on the west side of the casino,
away from the Strip, Judd said. His pickup truck
was stuck in the firefighting zone behind the Aztec,
he said.
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