Eight killed in hotel fire

Press, 12 February 1981, Page 1

Eight killed in hotel fire

NZPA Las egas A fire erupted and “jumped from floor to floor” at the 30-storey Las Vegas Hilton yesterday, killing at least eight people, i injuring at least 179, and shooting flames 30m up the side of one of the world’s bi~gest hotels. Police and fire officials were questioning a young nian in connection with the fire. , , ■ ..•■ -■ The blaze, which was reported at 8.7 p.m/. on Tuesday (local time) and brought under • control an hour later, came less than three months after, the disastrous fire at the nearby MGM Grand Hotel, in which 84 people died. ’ i - ; Some guests at the 2783-room stone-fronted Hilton broke windows and screamed frantically for help after the fire started from unknown causes at the : t comer of the eighth floor, quickly spreading z.s high as the twenty-fourth floor. > • Helicopters moved people from the roof, and ambulances raced to, the

scene. Several sheets could be seen hanging from windows. “We looked oi.t the •window and it was awful scary seeing the chopper and the lights,” said Mrs Deborah Sawyer, of Florida, who was in a twenty-third floor room with her husband. “We saw windows breaking and ■people screaming. We felt trapped.” She; said that they called the switchboard and were-itold “to put towels under the door and stay in the room.”. In an interview after the MGM Grand fire, Mr Fritz Huebier, manager of the Hilton, .said that his hotel had the highest degree of safety. “Like everyone else, we review it every month or so,” he said. The hotel had. smoke alarms and! sprinklers on evc-v floor,- Mr Huebier said. The MGM Grand had sprinklers on only a few floors, and no smoke alarms.