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February 1, 2007

Station: Bouncer Scott Vieira saw the fire start

Scott Vieira, who lost his wife in the fire, remembers hearing Dan Biechele, Great White's manager, take responsibility for the fire.

In an interview with the State Police, he says after the fire started Biechele said: "Boy, I [expletive] this one up. I [expletive] it up."

Vieira said he saw the clicker and he estimated that there were 410 to 420 people in the club when the fire started. "And that's a hard number," he told the state police.

The club was licensed for a maximum occupancy of 404.

During the night, Vieira said he saw his wife working near the stage. He wasn't asked about where she was after the fire started.

Vieira told the police that immediately after the fire started he tried to direct people to the back door.

"I went, yelled into the pool room area trying to get people out, to come that way, and everybody was rushing towards the front door, and I was screaming, 'Come on people, you gotta come that way,'" Vieira said in his witness statement.

"And then I went to the back door and then I seen it wasn't as bad as it ended up being, so I went in and I called some more people and I got, like I said, maybe a dozen, 15 more people out that I know wouldn't have made it out unless I went back in and got them. There's no way they would have made it out."

After he got out, Vieira said he worked to pull people out of the pile at the door.

Posted by Steve Peoples  at 11:44 AM | Permalink

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