City of Las Vegas firefighters head into the Alpine Motel Apartments after a fatal early morning fire in downtown Las Vegas Saturday, Dec. 21, 2019. Six people died and 13 injured after a fire in the three-story apartment complex, authorities said.
Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2019 | 3:31 p.m.
Related Stories
The Clark County Coroner’s Office has identified six people who died in a fire Saturday at a downtown Las Vegas apartment building.
They were Henry Lawrence Pinc, 70; Tracy Ann Cihal, 57; Francis Lombardo Jr., 72; Cynthia Mikell, 61; Donald Keith Bennett, 63; and Kerry Baclaan, 46. All were Las Vegas residents.
The cause and manner of death will be determined in the next six to eight weeks, Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg said in a statement.
“We would like to express our sincere condolences to the friends and families of the victims during this difficult time,” he said.
Thirteen other people were injured in the blaze.
Firefighters responded at 4:13 a.m. Saturday to reports of heavy smoke coming from the Alpine Motel Apartments, 213 N. Ninth Street, and found people jumping from the three-story building.
The fire appears to have started near a stove in a first-floor unit, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue officials said. Residents reported that some people were using stoves for heat, officials said.
The building didn’t have central heating, and there were individual heating and air conditioning units in each apartment, Las Vegas Fire Marshal Robert Nolan said.
Residents also reported pulling fire alarms, which didn’t sound, an account preliminarily confirmed by firefighters, officials said Saturday.
Metro Police crime scene investigators and fire code enforcement officials were probing the scene. Findings will be shared with the Clark County District Attorney’s Office, Nolan said.
Investigators were testing each heating unit and the fire alarm, officials said.
There were no active code enforcement investigations at the time of a blaze, officials said.
