Fire Rescue News - Saturday morning fire damages section of Tropicana in Atlantic City, casino floor briefly evacuated
ATLANTIC CITY - The casino floor of the Tropicana Casino and Resort was evacuated early Saturday morning due to a fire on the sixth floor of the building.
Authorities have not determined the cause of the blaze but believe it started in an.....Continue Reading
outdoor planter and burned through the building's exterior and into the wall, city Fire Chief Dennis Brooks said.
The shutdown lasted 20 minutes and occurred because the ventilation system pulled in smoke from the fire outside and piped it onto the casino floor, Brooks said.
"It's something the fire department takes very seriously. We need to make sure the casino floor isn't evacuated unnecessarily ... and get (it) back in service as quickly as possible," Brooks said.
In addition to losing revenue, the casino sustained between $30,000 and $50,000 worth of structural damage, the Fire Department estimated.
The fire scorched the facade and set off sprinklers that flooded utility closets and stairwells on the fourth and fifth floors. Firefighters also had to break through the wall to get to its source, exposing and disrupting wiring and other mechanics in the process, Brooks said.
The state Division of Gaming Enforcement did not immediately respond to calls or e-mails for comment this afternoon. Tropicana representatives could not immediately explain how the fire affected operations but anticipated being able to provide details later.
The fire did not affect the property's hotel tower, nor The Quarter, a 200,000-square-foot shopping, dining, nightlife and entertainment complex connected to the casino by an enclosed footbridge above Pacific Avenue.
The call reporting the fire came in at 4:29 a.m. The first crews arrived within four minutes, the National Fire Protection Association standard.
Two dozen firefighters ultimately responded to the two-alarm fire and brought it under control by 5:11 a.m., Brooks said.
Minutes later, another engine and ladder truck responded to a car accident on the westbound side of Route 30. They were quickly called off because the people involved in the one-car crash were not entrapped and the scene did not need to be cleared, Brooks said.
If the firefighters had stayed, or a third call had come in while they were in transit, the department would have called for mutual aid from a nearby municipality or two, but the city was "stripped of resources" for a brief time, he said.
"Anytime you have an event that depletes manpower, there's a time lapse. There's just no way to get around it," Brooks said.
In September, the city laid off 30 firefighters from the department, which had already been stretched by a ban on overtime and 23 retirements.
Contact Emily Previti: 609-272-7221 EPreviti@pressofac.com
