At 7:15 Friday morning, a fast-moving fire erupted from the hotel’s deli, racing through the casino and sending toxic smoke through the hotel tower. (The 1946 fire in Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel, which claimed 119 lives, had that dubious honor.) All told, the MGM Grand fire would claim 87 lives. It was the worst disaster in the city’s history, and, at the time, the second-worst hotel fire in the nation’s history.
Everyone who was in Las Vegas on the morning of Novemremembers what they were doing when they heard that the MGM Grand was burning.
