Title
It Took a Fire to Change Us
Document Type
News Article
Publication Date
6-2-2020
Publication Title
Desert Companion's DC Blog
First page number:
1
Last page number:
6
Abstract
Everyone who was in Las Vegas on the morning of November 21, 1980 remembers what they were doing when they heard that the MGM Grand was burning. It was the worst disaster in the city’s history, and, at the time, the second-worst hotel fire in the nation’s history. (The 1946 fire in Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel, which claimed 119 lives, had that dubious honor.) All told, the MGM Grand fire would claim 87 lives. Thursday night had ended normally. At 7:15 Friday morning, a fast-moving fire erupted from the hotel’s deli, racing through the casino and sending toxic smoke through the hotel tower. Most of the hotel’s 2,000 rooms were filled with sleeping guests who, if they were lucky, were woken by shouting and banging.
Keywords
Las Vegas history; MGM fire; Hotel fire disaster
Disciplines
Emergency and Disaster Management | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Language
English
Repository Citation
Schwartz, D.
(2020).
It Took a Fire to Change Us.
Desert Companion's DC Blog
1-6.
https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/evpp_fac_articles/16