JANE ANN MORRISON: Monte Carlo fire may have been an accident, but it didn't have to happen - News

PRINT THIS Popular

Feb. 02, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JANE ANN MORRISON: Monte Carlo fire may have been an accident, but it didn't have to happen

JANE ANN MORRISON
MORE COLUMNS

Even before Clark County announced the official cause of the Monte Carlo fire, you knew it would come down to the essentials: Laziness and lackluster supervision.

This is a town that loves gambling, and six union steelworkers gambled that no fire would ignite a highly flammable exterior.

Most Popular Stories

NORM: When live news shots turn bad

NORM: Terry Fator, wife ending marriage

NORM: Blaze breaks out during magic act

NORM: Jackson worked on album at Palms

Ex-Ensign aide details wife's affair

NORM: Jacksons set up LV memorial area

Ensign wrote lover a letter, saying their affair was a 'sin'

Coroner says sexual assault suspect killed by police was shot in back

LV area residential real estate sales reach record in June

Official: Fatal gunshot in back

Well, they crapped out.

The fire a week ago thankfully didn't kill anyone or even seriously injure anyone. But it sure inconvenienced and frightened a lot of folks.

It didn't have to happen.

It was an accident caused by human error. Workers failed to use something called a "slag mat," a woven fiberglass blanket that is used to shield welding or cutting torch work.

On Monday, I was told the fire was "definitely caused by welding, and if the workers had taken the minimum step of putting out a welding blanket, this wouldn't have happened."

On Thursday, county officials officially confirmed this was a preventable fire. The cause of the fire was the workers who were on the Monte Carlo's roof cutting corrugated steel products used for part of a walkway being installed on the interior of the protective wall along the perimeter of the roof.

There was no fire watch, and the workers didn't use slag mats. How easy it would have been for them to do what they were supposed to do and put down a slag mat so that molten metal from a hand-held cutting torch wouldn't fly around and catch decorative foam afire.

Five workers and their supervisor were on the roof. The supervisor was laying out the holes the others were cutting with their torches, said a source familiar with the investigation.

Sure, it was an accident. There was no intent to start a fire. I'm sure those people feel bad about what happened.

But shortcuts are so much faster.

"They had a slag mat in their job box, they just didn't use it. I suspect they didn't want to climb down the ladder to get it," the source said.

You can't even blame a failure to communicate. There were no language problems with the workers, who were welders and apprentices with Ironworkers Local 433, described as "all knowledgeable people."

So why didn't they get a slag mat? And why did the company they worked for not bother to get a hot works permit before torching holes in steel atop a major hotel?

The loser in this towering inferno is the contractor, Union Erectors, which didn't get the required permits, according to county officials.

Union Erectors issued a press release late Friday denying any wrongdoing and saying the company and its employees had "acted in a safe and responsible manner."

Union Erectors is no fly-by-night operation. The Las Vegas company worked on the Monorail, Paris Las Vegas, the Venetian, Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand and the cooling tower at the MGM Mirage CityCenter.

But it was more than just the careless failure to use a slag mat that fueled this fire. The use of foam, which doesn't meet the current code, played an important role.

The foam, an expert said, "is a disaster just waiting to happen."

And in the case of the Monte Carlo, it created "as tough a fire as you can get" because firefighters couldn't get to it from the outside but had to fight it from below.

"Those firefighters did an excellent job," the fire expert said.

The foam (Exterior Insulation Finish Systems) has been used up and down the Strip. The Review-Journal's Howard Stutz wrote that his sources said it was used outside at the Bellagio, Paris Las Vegas, Excalibur, Treasure Island, Caesars Palace and New York-New York.

Presumably it's a lot cheaper than using bricks and mortar.

Today's standard is more fire retardant than it was before 2001. Anything pre-2001, when the code changed, "probably melts and drips and burns like hell," the source said. Certainly that was true of the Monte Carlo.

The five steelworkers and their supervisor haven't been identified publicly, but they must be uneasy these days. Nobody wants to be known as part of the team that set the Monte Carlo on fire because they were too lazy to do it right.

Of course, they can always take the easy way out and say they were just doing what the job boss told them. But the boss, well, he's got some explaining to do.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.

Share & Save

Leave Your Comment	8 Reader Comments
Terms & Conditions The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The reviewjournal.com does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please notify the web editor. Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 48 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background. Justin wrote on December 30, 2008 08:44 AM: What do you think about your irresponsable comments on the Monte Carlo fire now that the facts are on the table and Osha has ruled on the alledged violations.I think that your reserch for your story was lack luster and you just flap your gums with no idea what you are giving your worthless opinion on.It has been a year since the fire all initial accounts of the fire have fallen by the way side along with your story. We worked on that roof for 7 months prior to the fire,with no problems. You are so quick to throw those hard working men under the bus you ignored all facts and just made up your own story.Do everyone involved a favor and do some research and draw a real world story on the fire and the truth about the alladged OSHA violations that have been thrown out. Bob Miller wrote on February 05, 2008 03:53 PM: Steelworkers??? Give me a break!!!! Can't anyone get it correct even though all the 'clues' are imbedded in the article??? Steelworkers MAKE steel. IRONWORKERS erect steel. I'm a steelworker (USWA), stop slandering me and MY UNION!!! What part of 'IronWorkers' didn't you understand since you clearly mentioned Ironworkers Local 433? comanchecanyon wrote on February 03, 2008 10:37 PM: Jane Ann: I assume you saw the story in the 2/3/08 Sun, which in effect claimed that the City and County are stuck with the decorative foam, because of the content of the Uniform Building Code. I've send the following comment to the Sun, but wanted to bring it to your attention because of your editorial on 2/2/08. "The foregoing article in the Las Vegas Sun written by an unsophisticated reporter, and edited by an unsophisticated editorial staff, sickens me. Ron Lynn's non-disclosure in connection with the Uniform Building Code further convinces me that the Clark County Commissioners should fire him. Neither Mr. Lynn nor the reporter bothered to disclose to the public that cities and counties around the country commonly amend the Uniform Building Code to make it more stringent when circumstances dictate. The most common example of those modifications is in California, where earthquake safety standards dictate more "reinforcement" of structures than in non-earthquake zones. In Florida, similar modifications are made to deal with hurricane force winds common there, but not throughout the country. Mr. Lynn knows damn well that Clark County is not forced to accept the Uniform Building Code as is. He simply proves that he is an immoral manipulator, for the benefit of the casinos, in failing to make that disclosure to the Sun's naive reporter. Clark County and the City of Las Vegas have the power, if they choose to do so, to ban the use of the very type of decorative foam which caused the rapidly spreading fire at the Monte Carlo. They simply choose not to do so, because the Commissioners, County Executive, Mr. Lynn, City Council, City Manager and City Building Department Chief are totally in the pockets of the casino operators, who want to build architecturally complex (i.e. gaudy) buildings at the casinos. Robert wrote on February 02, 2008 04:06 PM: Now that everyone has seen the danger of a fire in Las Vegas they should realize the risk during the massive fireworks displays off the roofs of the hotels. oldlawdawgb wrote on February 02, 2008 11:17 AM: I think Jane's statements about foam pop-outs are not entirely coreect. Certain foam pop-outs do indeed meet the building code requirements, and there were several flame retardant foam building materials on the market in 2001, and they do not simply melt and drip flame. You need to be careful what you say, Jane, as 99.9% of homes in Las Vegas have foam pop-outs, and you are unnecessarily and irresponsibly scaring people. comanchecanyon wrote on February 02, 2008 10:39 AM: Jane Ann: Thanks for a column that is morally and legally correct. You focused on two key issues: The safety risks presented by existing exterior foam and the result of independent contractor negligence. On the contractor issue guess how much liability insurance most contractors carry? Only $1,000,000. In a multi-death casualty scenario, with no casino negligence, there would be a lot of destitute widows and orphans. On the issue of the risk presented by existing exterior form, there have been posts on the LVRJ and Sun blogs referring readers to "high rise websites" which have discussed the risks presented when the whole side of a high rise tower catches on fire. Apparently, that already happened in New Jersey. If you are interested in tracking him down, there is a retired professor at SUNY Buffalo named Charles Ebert who is an expert on what happened in the 1940's in Dresden, Germany when an urban fire storm was created. It's called the Dresden Fire Storm. Wikipedia doesn't cover it. I saw Professor Ebert's lecture on how the Dresden fire storm was created. With the knowledge from that lecture, I can see how an entire side of a casino high rise, engulfed in flaming foam, could create a fire storm that County/City Fire Departments could not extinguish. Think of such a fire storm at an architecturally elaborate, high density casino complex at the corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard. You, the LVRJ Editorial Board, and the Fire Chiefs of the county and city should see Dr. Ebert's presentation. I never thought about the risk of a fire storm on the Strip until the Monte Carlo fire, but now I am very afraid for the lives of the fire fighters who would have to fight it. Agreed wrote on February 02, 2008 09:13 AM: These guys definitely took shortcuts. Getting a hot work permit, laying fire retardant blankets, and posting a fire watch is BASIC to this kind of job. They were just being LAZY, plain and simple. They took a gamble and they lost. I'd have more respect for these guys if they would just admit they were wrong. But that probably won't happen in today's world. Sounds like the company and the union are backing these guys. Puh-leez! Now the question is, was taking these shortcuts accepted as "business as usual"? And, if so, how long has it been allowed to happen? I think the Monte Carlo ought to sue Union Erectors AND the Ironworkers if that's the case. Union Brother wrote on February 02, 2008 05:20 AM: This lil' lady has her facts wrong. We are the UNION.. We are TRAINED better than ANYONE. Slag mats would have just got in the way, and they seldom are used for putting out fires. Extinguishers put out fires. Also.. we had a Local 433 Apprentice that was sposed' to be watching out fer fires, but he stepped away to the roach coach, but he said there weren't no fires when he left, and we believe him cause he never lied yet, so as I first said... This lil' lady has her facts wrong. Oh yeah.... you can visit me and my brothers website at http://www.ironworkers433.org/ . We are the Union and we are safe and we build las vages better than any scabs could and they shoulda not put foam on the roof and this woulnt of happened.