MGM Grand fire
Deaths
Date	November 21, 1980
Venue	MGM Grand Hotel and Casino
Location	Paradise, Nevada, U.S.
Type	Fire
Cause	Accidental
Non-fatal injuries	588 guests 25 employees 14 firefighters

The MGM Grand fire occurred on Friday, November 21, 1980 at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (now Bally's Las Vegas) in Paradise, Nevada. The fire killed 85 people, most through smoke inhalation.^[1] The tragedy remains the worst disaster in Nevada history, and the third-worst hotel fire in modern U.S. history, after the 1946 Winecoff Hotel fire in Atlanta that killed 119 people and the San Juan (Puerto Rico) Dupont Plaza Hotel fire on December 31, 1986, in which 97 perished.

1Fire
2Cause
4Aftermath

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Fire[edit]

At the time of the fire, about 5,000 people were in the hotel and casino, a 26-story luxury resort with more than 2,000 hotel rooms.^[2] At approximately 7:07 a.m. on Friday, November 21, 1980, a fire began in a restaurant known as The Deli. The fire was discovered during an inspection of the restaurant by a tile crew. A crew supervisor noticed a flickering light, which turned out to be a wall of flames.^[3] An employee of the hotel's bakery recounted how just after 7 a.m. he saw smoke coming from the ceiling vents and the lights went out.^[4] MGM Security was immediately advised of the situation, and alerted the Clark County Fire Department which was the first agency to respond. CCFD received a call reporting the fire at 7:17 am, with the first engine arriving on site at 7:19 am. A third alarm was called at 7:22 am, and a Metro Police Helicopter pilot requested all available helicopters at 7:30 am.^[5]

Other agencies included the North Las Vegas Fire Department, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, and the Henderson Fire Department. A massive helicopter rescue effort from Nellis Air Force Base pulled 1,000 people from the roof of the MGM Grand,^[3] involving both U.S. Air ForceUH-1N (Hueys) from the 57th Wing based in Indian Springs and CH-3E (Jolly Green Giants) from the 1st Special Operations Wing based in Hurlburt Field, Florida (which were in Nevada to participate in Red Flag '80).

The fire spread to the lobby, fed by wallpaper, PVC piping, glue, and plastic mirrors, racing through the casino floor at a speed of 15–19 ft/s (4.6–5.8 m/s; 10–13 mph; 16–21 km/h) until a massive fireball blew out the main entrance along The Strip. From the time the fire was noticed, it took six minutes for the entire building to be fully engulfed.^[6] It spread across the areas of the casino in which no fire sprinklers were installed. Eighteen people died in the casino level of the hotel.^[7]

The burning material created toxic fumes and smoke, which ascended throughout the hotel tower via vertical shafts (elevators and stairwells) and seismic joints and caused the majority of the deaths.^[8] Firefighters reported having to crawl through the dark and over 'mounds of stuff' trying to extinguish the fire, it was later determined that the 'mounds' were deceased guests and staff near an elevator bank.^[3] Proper evacuation of the hotel guests was hindered as there was no automatic means of returning elevators to the main floor during a fire, causing 10 deceased victims to be found in an elevator.^[7] Survivors recounted how some in the hotel had tied bedsheets together and hung them on balconies in an attempt to escape upper floor rooms and alert first responders.^[4]

Victims[edit]

A total of 85 people were killed (including seven employees) and 650 injured, including guests, employees, and 14 firefighters.^[1] While the fire primarily damaged the second-floor casino and adjacent restaurants, 61 deaths were on the upper floors of the hotel (19th - 24th floors), mostly in the stairwells, where all doors except on the roof and ground floor were locked and the smoke concentration was the highest.^[9] Some guests died in their sleep.^{[citation needed]}

Seventy-five people died from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning; four from smoke inhalation alone; three from burns and smoke inhalation; one from burns alone; one from massive skull trauma, caused by jumping from a high window; and one of myocarditis.^[1] The disaster led to the general publicizing of the fact that during a building fire, smoke inhalation is a more serious threat than flames.^{[citation needed]}

Cause[edit]

The fire was confined to the casino and restaurant areas. The hotel was equipped with a fire sprinkler system that performed properly by keeping the fire out of other sections of the building. The area with the most fire prevention was in the money counting area, not in individual rooms or on the casino floor.^[10]^{[citation needed]}

Electric fire[edit]

The fire was caused by an electrical ground fault inside a wall socket.^[11]^[12]

A refrigerated pastry display case was added, after original construction of the hotel, to one of its restaurants (known as The Deli).^[10] Unlike a modern display case, which would be totally self-contained (compressor installed in bottom of display case), this unit functioned like a walk-in cooler or central air conditioning system, with a pair of copper refrigerant lines connecting its evaporator to a condensing unit located outside the building. When this set-up was installed, the copper lineset was run through the same wall soffit as a pre-existing electrical conduit and in physical contact with the conduit.^[3]^{[citation needed]}

The fan-forced evaporator unit in the display case was not properly secured, and thus was able to vibrate constantly while in operation; these vibrations were carried along the copper refrigerant lines, causing the pipes to rub against the electrical conduit in the wall soffit and make them vibrate as well. Through a combination of galvanic corrosion (where the copper refrigerant pipes were in physical contact with the aluminum electrical conduit, causing the conduit to erode over time), and vibration – as well as jagged edges and stretched wires resulting from poor workmanship during the installation – the electrical wires inside the conduit ended up missing chunks of their plastic insulation, and the conduit was rendered un-grounded (there was no separate ground wire; the metal conduit itself was designed to function as the ground, so the disintegration of the conduit rendered the system un-grounded).

These now-bare electrical conductors inside the un-grounded metal conduit glowed red-hot and began arcing, which ignited the fire.^[1] The fire reportedly smoldered for hours until it found fresh oxygen and burst into a fireball that burst into the casino, and was fed by other combustibles.^[13]

Spread of smoke[edit]

Due to faulty smoke dampers within the ventilation duct network, the toxic fumes circulated throughout the hotel's air conditioning system, accelerating the spread of the poisonous gases.^[14] The elevator shafts were located above the restaurant and casino and aided the spreading of smoke, and guests who discovered fire doors in some stairwells automatically locked, propped them open allowing for more smoke to spread.^[13]

Mgm Grand Casino Vung Tau