Firefighters swiftly extinguish fire at The Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas

A massive fire erupted near the pool of The Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas Saturday, sending a large black plume of smoke into the sky.

The Clark County Fire Department confirmed that it responded to a two-alarm fire at the luxury hotel and casino on Las Vegas Boulevard. Passersby on the strip could see the thick cloud rising from the fire.

Sandra Baker, a spokesperson for the fire department, said that a call came in at 12:16 p.m., emergency vehicles were dispatched at 12:17 and firefighters managed to knock down the fire at 12:47.

“It was an outside fire and we had good access, so it wasn’t like fighting an inside structure fire. We practice and drill all the time at our hotels and casinos here,” Baker said in an interview with Yahoo News. “We know how to get our hose lines up quickly.”

No one was burned in the blaze, but that at least two people suffered from smoke inhalation, she said. At least one person was transferred to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Baker noted the importance of acting swiftly, in part because of the fake landscaping on the pool deck and the possibility of the fire traveling into the building, where it would be more difficult to contain.

Several trees and cabanas on the pool deck were burned, but the fire moved only slightly into the building, authorities said.

“There’s something serious going on. It’s like igniting,” a witness said while shooting a video of the blaze. “There was a hundred people just running from the hotel.”

Baker said the fire department is working with the hotel to figure out the cause of the blaze.

Another witness, who was on the pool deck, said to the Las Vegas Sun that hotel workers suspect that the fire was ignited by a cigarette. They think that a guest may have thrown the cigarette into a bush from the pool deck or from one of the floors above.

Fire crews were leading evacuations of the resort and checking for additional damage to the property.