Posted on 05/11/2007 10:56:21 AM PDT by BooBoo1000
Firefighters spray water on nearby homes as embers drift from a fire at the Murano at Silverado Ranch condo complex. Only one building outside the condo complex, a CVS drug store, sustained damage. The exterior of the store melted from the heat of the flames, but firefighters saved the building.
Hundreds of people line Maryland Parkway near Roger Gehring Elementary School on Thursday to watch a fire tear through the Murano condominiums construction site on Silverado Ranch Boulevard. Flames could be seen as far away as McCarran International Airport.
Firefighters battle a blaze consuming a condo complex. Smoke from the fire could be seen throughout the valley Thursday evening.
Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.
Thursday's high temperature of 99 degrees inspired Jerry Rodriguez to make an end-of-the-day stop at an ice cream shop at Silverado Ranch Boulevard and Maryland Parkway.
At the same time things were about to get a lot hotter across the street.
Flames erupted on the west side of a multimillion-dollar condominium construction site and spread east quickly until it engulfed the entire site, Clark County fire officials said.
When he went into the shop to grab a cup of pistachio nut ice cream, Rodriguez said, there was nothing going on outside.
"I came out," he said, "and it's the 'Towering Inferno.' "
The flames reached more than five stories into the sky and could be seen as far away as McCarran International Airport. The thick plumes of black smoke could be seen around the valley.
"This thing went up so fast," Clark County Assistant Fire Chief Fernandez Leary said.
Luckily, the wind buffeted the fire east across the property, away from a street of homes. Along the way, the flames fed off the unfinished wood frames of Murano condo complex at 1130 Silverado Ranch.
The first call for firefighters was at 6:11 p.m. One firefighter suffered burns on his arm during the initial offensive attack, Leary said. He was rushed to the burn center at University Medical Center, but his injuries were not life-threatening, Leary said.
None of the condos was known to have been occupied at the time of the fire, Leary said. There were no other reports of injuries late Thursday.
But the property damage was immense. Three alarms were called, and more than 60 firefighters from Clark County and Henderson fought the flames.
"We could not get enough units here fast enough" to keep it from spreading, Leary said. Firefighters had to revert to a defensive attack, a "surround and drown" tactic intended to try to keep it from spreading to neighboring properties.
Flames bent over a wall onto a CVS drug store at the corner of Maryland and Silverado Ranch, causing the sidings and signs on the building to drip down like wax on a candle. The building suffered exterior damage but was saved.
But most of the Murano at Silverado Ranch condo complex burned to the ground. A dollar estimate for the damage was not available late Thursday. A Web site advertised that prices started at $200,000 for a condo at the complex. There were about 150 condos planned for the site, some of which were three-stories.
When the fire was contained about 8 p.m., five streams of water were still being pumped onto the rubble. Leary expected firefighters to be out at the scene well into the night putting out any hot spots.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting Clark County fire investigators in trying to determine the cause of the fire, which could take weeks, Leary said.
Review-Journal photographer John Gurzinski contributed to this report.
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News POST A COMMENT May. 11, 2007 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
THREE-ALARM FIRE: Condo complex burns
Flames quickly engulf 150-unit construction site; firefighters save nearby homes
By FRANCIS McCABE REVIEW-JOURNAL Flames rise from the Murano condo complex Thursday on Silverado Ranch Boulevard near Maryland Parkway. More than 60 firefighters battled the flames for hours. Photos by John Gurzinski.
Firefighters spray water on nearby homes as embers drift from a fire at the Murano at Silverado Ranch condo complex. Only one building outside the condo complex, a CVS drug store, sustained damage. The exterior of the store melted from the heat of the flames, but firefighters saved the building.
Hundreds of people line Maryland Parkway near Roger Gehring Elementary School on Thursday to watch a fire tear through the Murano condominiums construction site on Silverado Ranch Boulevard. Flames could be seen as far away as McCarran International Airport.
Firefighters battle a blaze consuming a condo complex. Smoke from the fire could be seen throughout the valley Thursday evening.
Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.
Thursday's high temperature of 99 degrees inspired Jerry Rodriguez to make an end-of-the-day stop at an ice cream shop at Silverado Ranch Boulevard and Maryland Parkway.
At the same time things were about to get a lot hotter across the street.
Flames erupted on the west side of a multimillion-dollar condominium construction site and spread east quickly until it engulfed the entire site, Clark County fire officials said.
When he went into the shop to grab a cup of pistachio nut ice cream, Rodriguez said, there was nothing going on outside.
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"I came out," he said, "and it's the 'Towering Inferno.' "
The flames reached more than five stories into the sky and could be seen as far away as McCarran International Airport. The thick plumes of black smoke could be seen around the valley.
"This thing went up so fast," Clark County Assistant Fire Chief Fernandez Leary said.
Luckily, the wind buffeted the fire east across the property, away from a street of homes. Along the way, the flames fed off the unfinished wood frames of Murano condo complex at 1130 Silverado Ranch.
The first call for firefighters was at 6:11 p.m. One firefighter suffered burns on his arm during the initial offensive attack, Leary said. He was rushed to the burn center at University Medical Center, but his injuries were not life-threatening, Leary said.
None of the condos was known to have been occupied at the time of the fire, Leary said. There were no other reports of injuries late Thursday.
But the property damage was immense. Three alarms were called, and more than 60 firefighters from Clark County and Henderson fought the flames.
"We could not get enough units here fast enough" to keep it from spreading, Leary said. Firefighters had to revert to a defensive attack, a "surround and drown" tactic intended to try to keep it from spreading to neighboring properties.
Flames bent over a wall onto a CVS drug store at the corner of Maryland and Silverado Ranch, causing the sidings and signs on the building to drip down like wax on a candle. The building suffered exterior damage but was saved.
But most of the Murano at Silverado Ranch condo complex burned to the ground. A dollar estimate for the damage was not available late Thursday. A Web site advertised that prices started at $200,000 for a condo at the complex. There were about 150 condos planned for the site, some of which were three-stories.
When the fire was contained about 8 p.m., five streams of water were still being pumped onto the rubble. Leary expected firefighters to be out at the scene well into the night putting out any hot spots.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting Clark County fire investigators in trying to determine the cause of the fire, which could take weeks, Leary said.
Review-Journal photographer John Gurzinski contributed to this report.
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eco-terrorists?
Insurance?
“Insurance?”
Definite possibility. Don’t imagine the condo market is robust over there.
I saw this on the news. THen I watched it from the 24th floor steak room at Binions, across town from the fire. It was a BIG fire.
I don’t follow the Las Vegas real estate market, but even in a strong market, there’s always the possibility of a developer or building with financial problems.
Yep, it was ugly, alright. It flattened the place. It was an entire block, except for the pharmacy on one corner. When the news helicopter took film this morning, there was nothing left inside the cinder block walls.
There is often arson involved in new-home fires, usually when they are about half-built, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it was arson this time, too. Lot of it going around here.
Wow! My mother would have departed by then, but her friends were taking a late-night flight back East, so they probably saw it.
It was pretty far south, and if they left on a late flight, the fires would have been all but out. It was an inferno around 6:00 PM. The hard part was keeping it contained in that one block, and not spreading to the homes surrounging it.
It wasn’t even smoking this morning, but it just looked like a bunch of black junk from the air. Just piles that didn’t even look like they had been the beginnings of homes.
Not in Vegas. Vegas is a lost cause for the greenies. Matter of fact, the environmentalists signed on to the build-out of Vegas when Reid helped ram through legislation that creates a trust fund from BLM land sales in the Vegas valley to buy up “ecologically sensitive lands” in northern Nevada (translation: ranches the environmentalists want to own for their private retreats). The Big Green Machine looks as Las Vegas as their own private currency printing press for their schemes to eliminate ranching and farming in the rest of the state.
What caused this fire will likely be found to be a) arson and b) someone tied in to the builder. For those who keep saying “the housing market is just in a correction” and want to keep claiming that people pointing out the unsustainable boom in real estate is going to end badly are “doom-n-gloomers” — I submit to you Las Vegas: #1 in foreclosure rates. #1 in overbuilding relative to the market. #1 in approved, but still unbuilt housing.
Las Vegas is going to go through a really, really, really tough wash-out. And builders are going to suffer for their stupidity in Vegas, as will flippers, banks and construction workers.
I’m all for bringing it on: Vegas needs a severe come-uppance and deserves everything they get.
So, the state bird in Las Vegas went from a construction crane to a fire bug.....
Oldest trick in the book. Hope the fire marshall and insurance companies go over this with a fine tooth comb.
Looks like arson is the cause of the fire. It seems there were several places with “aligator” scaling.
Arson it is.
So UNsurprising. I’m glad nobody was seriously hurt.
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