Bally's Hotel Casino in Las Vegas is one of the older ones, before the volcanos and other gimmicks came along. It was originally called the MGM Grand and had a terrible fire November 21, 1980 that killed 87 people. The electrical fire smoldered overnight in the Deli, and then close to 7 am a fire ball raced through the casino out the front doors onto the Strip, instantly killing gamblers and employees in the casino. People died still holding cards in their hands and sitting in front of slot machines.

There were no smoke alarms in the guest rooms, no sprinkler systems, and no fire alarms in work areas like the bakery located below the deli. The fire alarms in the casino were manual and nobody pulled them.

The fire didn't go to higher floors, but the smoke rising by way of stairways and elevator shafts filled the 26 floors of the guest tower and killed many. The ventilation system was improperly installed, and the air conditioning system didn't shut down, spreading the smoke even more. Someone said maybe it was better the rooms didn't have alarms because people might have rushed out into the halls where the smoke was so bad and died.



A firefighter rescues a woman from one of the lower floors of the MGM Grand Hotel. Fire equipment could only reach to the ninth floor of the 26-floor high-rise, so the deaths from smoke inhalation were on the higher floors where people were unable to escape the Nov. 21, 1980, fire. 300 people were rescued by helicopters from the roof. Some of them were rushing the choppers in panic so the pilot stationed his partner on the roof with a gun to keep them back.

As it was, people died in their rooms with wet towels stuffed around the bottoms of the doors. Those who survived used furniture to break out the windows. One of the firemen whose job it was to locate the bodies described finding a young couple dead in bed, locked in embrace, a bouquet of red roses on the dresser. He wished they had a great big body bag so the two could have stayed together.

Despite pressure from fire marshals during the hotel's construction (and even after it opened in December 1973), hotel executives fought installing sprinklers. Sprinklers in the casino would have added about $192,000 to the cost of the $106 million hotel. A helpful Clark County building official interpreted the code so the hotel wasn't forced to have sprinklers in the casino, or in The Deli restaurant where the fire started.

Settling the claims from the fire cost $223 million. MGM's $105 million was the largest. The second biggest sum was $14.4 million paid by Simpson Timber Co. for providing below-grade ceiling tiles and flammable adhesive. Millions also were paid out by the architects, contractors, subcontractors, and those who provided materials that enhanced the smoke damage.

After the fire there was a lot of call for the casino hotels to be retrofitted with sprinkler systems, which would cost about $2 million per hotel. For three months after the MGM fire, there was opposition to retrofitting. The retrofit of a Strip hotel was estimated to cost $2 million.

Opposition crumbled when an arsonist set fire to the Las Vegas Hilton on Feb. 10, 1981. Eight people were killed and 200 injured. The timing of the Hilton fire was particularly bad. The national press was in Las Vegas for the next day's big event: Frank Sinatra was going to be in front of gaming regulators to seek a gaming license. News of the Hilton fire, including the pictures of flames leaping up the outside of the hotel, went around the world nearly as quickly as those flames had jumped from floor to floor.

All this led to stricter fire codes and enforcement so now Las Vegas hotels are considered to be the safest to stay in. I can remember at the time I vowed I would never stay on a high floor of any hotel, out of the reach of the rescue ladders, but have since abandoned that resolve and don't give it a thought as we whisk upward in the elevator.

Here is that hotel today: