By james art Las Vegas (KSNV) — At least four people are missing after a two-alarm fire gutted a Las Vegas home early Thursday, according to a county official.
Crews from the Clark County Fire Department can be seen responding to a heavily damaged three-story home on Langhorne Creek Road.
Two of the people — a mother and a juvenile child — in the home jumped from a third-story window and were taken to University Medical Center for treatment, Clark County Fire Chief John Steinbeck said.
Investigators have received conflicting information, but Steinbeck said they believe at least four people were inside the home and remain unaccounted for. Two of these people may be minors.
We know that if anyone was inside at that point, they didn’t survive,” he said.
The fire was reported at about 4:08 a.m., Steinbeck told reporters. Arriving firefighters found flames coming out of windows on the second and third floors. They tried to get through the front door on the second floor, but were pushed back by the heat.
They broke through the garage door to conduct a search, but had to evacuate when the second floor began to collapse on top of them.
Crews established a defensive approach to prevent the fire from spreading to neighboring homes. A second alarm was raised at 4:18 a.m. and by 4:22 a.m. crews had extinguished the fire from the outside and attempted to search pockets of available space inside the collapsed house.
The roof, third and second floors collapsed into a field of debris in the garage, hampering firefighting efforts. Removing the debris can make the remains of the building less stable.
It’s a very dangerous structure at this point, the stability of it,” Steinbeck said. “The floors are completely burned. The walls are questionable.
Firefighters are still checking hot spots and all heavy rescue crews from Las Vegas Valley Fire Departments are assisting, along with structural collapse technicians from Nevada Task Force 1.
There was no significant damage to neighboring homes, Steinbeck said, but the force of the radiated heat was strong enough to blow out the windows of one house.
There is no information about the causes and origin of the fire. Steinbeck said he expects the investigation into the cause to take a significant amount of time. It is also unclear if the smoke alarms were activated.
Federal and local agencies are assisting in the investigation.
No firefighters were injured during the response, according to Steinbeck.
This is a developing story.