2023-06-21 07:00:00
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a residential complex under construction near Buffalo Drive and the 215 Beltway on Tuesday, June 20, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Jimmy Romo/Las Vegas Review-Journal) Aerial view of damage caused by a large fire at an apartment complex under construction near Buffalo Drive and the 215 Beltway, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye Las Vegas Review-Journal) @btesfaye Aerial view of damage caused by a large fire at an apartment complex under construction near Buffalo Drive and the 215 Beltway, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye Las Vegas Review-Journal) @btesfaye Aerial view of damage caused by a large fire at an apartment complex under construction near Buffalo Drive and the 215 Beltway, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye Las Vegas Review-Journal) @btesfaye Aerial view of damage caused by a large fire at an apartment complex under construction near Buffalo Drive and the 215 Beltway, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye Las Vegas Review-Journal) @btesfaye Aerial view of damage caused by a large fire at an apartment complex under construction near Buffalo Drive and the 215 Beltway, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye Las Vegas Review-Journal) @btesfaye
A large apartment complex under construction in South Las Vegas devastated by a huge fire it will have to be demolished Thursday and the massive amount of debris will have to be removed, a Clark County fire official said.
“They’ve got to tear this down,” said Deputy Fire Chief Brian O’Neil, standing in front of the smoldering remains of what were once several partially completed buildings. “It cannot be saved.”
Tuesday’s fire at 8030 W. Maule Ave., near South Buffalo Drive and the 215 Beltway in the southwest valley, engulfed and destroyed a building under construction, with the flames visible for miles.
Fire crews began responding following calls began coming in around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Clark County Fire Department’s Kelly Blackmon said in a statement.
O’Neil said the project destroyed in the blaze is estimated to have cost $200 million, but firefighters were able to save an expected clubhouse worth regarding $10 million.
“I only remember one or two times in the last 20 years when there has been a fire of this magnitude,” O’Neil said.
“It is very rare for a fire of this size to occur,” he added. “There is no way to put out a fire like that.”
On Wednesday morning, some of the fallen debris from the building was in a heap of twisted metal and another section showed one side of a building still standing, both areas still emitting broad streams of white smoke.
Several bare concrete towers that had once been elevator shafts still stood as if they were remnants of a bombing raid.
O’Neil said he observed the fire around 11 pm Tuesday and it was “one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen — a huge building completely engulfed in flames.”
“It’s a five-story building with flames a hundred feet high.”
To bring down the devastated complex, firefighters will have to bring in a bulldozer-like device to drag it into the ground, the deputy chief said.
The equipment was needed because it can be placed to reach buildings, but well away from the concrete deck of the project’s underground parking lot, which might be filled with water and pose a hazard, O’Neil said, adding that there are only one or two of these devices available in the Las Vegas Valley.
The building to the north collapsed in last night’s fire and flames forced their way into neighboring buildings, making it difficult for firefighters trying to put it out with water hoses, he said.
“You can’t put out a building that’s burning inside from the outside,” he said. “Eventually we were going to lose it, we just mightn’t do anything regarding it.”
At one point, a crew trying to put out the fire on the roof of one of the buildings, where it was first reported, went to switch from a water tank for their hoses to a hydrant outside the project on Maule Avenue, but the heat was so intense they had to retreat, he said.
Fire crews were able to prevent the flames from reaching the clubhouse, a major asset to the project’s owners, O’Neil said.
“It’s pretty amazing that, in something of this magnitude, a structure would come out undamaged,” he said.
Sheldon Tabas, 72, a resident of the neighboring apartment complex and a member of its homeowners association, said he and other tenants saw the fire and wondered if they would be ordered to evacuate like residents of the Maverick apartment buildings on Maule Avenue had to.
The wind blew away from the compound, blowing smoke and ash.
“It was worrying, but luckily it was not a reality,” he said.
John Cekala, 70, a visitor from Albuquerque, New Mexico, said he saw the flames as he was walking back to his unit from the grocery store Tuesday, went to look through the back fence, and within seconds the entire roof was engulfed.
“It was fast,” he said. “It took regarding 40 minutes before the first building started to collapse. You might hear all the noise from the collapse.”
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