A discussion about the fire at MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 1980.
This paper presents a discussion about the fire at MGM Grand Hotel, Las Vegas which broke out in 1980 and killed over 100 people. The writer discusses the cause of the fire as well as many aspects of the response from emergency management. It shows that, even after the fire, hotel management argued that two dollar smoke detectors in each hotel room was too much of an expense for the hotel to cover. The paper examines the changes made to the fire regulations after the tragedy that will hopefully save lives in the future.
“The MGM Fire has been recorded as the second worst hotel fire in the history of the nation. When all was aid and done almost 100 people were dead and many others injured. The MGM fire has been credited with opening the public’s eyes to the fact that fire and smoke do kill people. When the fire occurred the Nevada Governor appointed a committee of fire prevention experts that included building inspectors, government officials and firefighters to examine the fire’s causes and things that could have been done to minimize the damage and death that it caused(Koch, 2000).
One of the biggest issues that came to the public following the MGM Grand fire was the fact that it did not have a sprinkler system installed.”