-- A three-alarm fire billowing black smoke charred the top of MGM Mirage's 32-story Monte Carlo Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip earlier today, forcing the evacuation of its 3,002 rooms and gaming hall. More than a dozen people suffered minor injuries.
``Our firefighters had to hang out of the windows'' to put out the blaze, Steven Smith, Clark County fire chief, said in a televised interview. The cause of the fire, which was mostly confined to the exterior of the building, is under investigation. There was no immediate indication of arson, he said.
Five guests and eight engineers suffered from minor smoke inhalation, said Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM, in an interview. The blaze started around 11 a.m. local time, drew 120 firefighters, and was contained by 12:15 p.m., he said.
``The fire was restricted to the exterior of the building,'' Absher said, relaying information from the fire department. ``The sprinklers didn't even go off in some of those (top floor) rooms, because there was no smoke.''
The fire raised memories of the 1980 blaze at the MGM Grand Hotel, which killed 87 people and led to new safety measures for hotels in the U.S.
Today's fire affected the roof of the Monte Carlo and at least two floors below, Absher said. The Monte Carlo has 3,015 employees, and the casino has more than 102,100 square feet of gaming space, according to its Web site.
Built by Mandalay
MGM, the world's second-largest casino company, fell $2.25, or 3.1 percent, to $70.80 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading today. The shares were down prior to the first reports of the fire. The company's shares climbed 47 percent last year.
The Monte Carlo, which sits on the Las Vegas Strip adjacent to MGM's $7.8 billion CityCenter project, opened in 1996 and was renovated in 2004. It was built by Mandalay Resort Group, which MGM bought in 2005.
It's one of more than two dozen casinos on the strip, and is the 13th largest by casino floor space and 11th by rooms. The casino won $160 million from gamblers in 2006, according to Jefferies & Co. estimates, the seventh-highest amount among Las Vegas Strip casinos.
The top floor features personalized concierge service for guests who stay in one of 45 deluxe rooms, seven suites or eight one- or two-bedroom penthouses, according to the hotel's Web site.
Backed-Up Traffic
The Nevada Public Safety Department shut down some exit ramps from Interstate 15 in Las Vegas and some nearby roads as traffic began to back up while motorists slowed to look at the fire, department spokesman Kevin Honea said in a telephone interview.
``I can't tell you exactly how far it's backed up,'' Honea said. ``I-15 traffic is still flowing. It looks like it normally does at 4 p.m., and it's noon.''
The MGM Grand blaze on Nov. 21, 1980, flashed through the casino at a rate of 19 feet per second, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. An investigation determined that a sprinkler system could have averted the disaster; legal settlements totaled more than $223 million, the newspaper said. The hotel is now Bally's.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Flinn in San Francisco at rflinn@bloomberg.net
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