Fire at Sturgis Saloon Stokes Fears of Rally Disaster

The fire that destroyed the Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis, S.D., is stoking fears of a disaster during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

The annual late-summer rally draws hundreds of thousands of people to the area. The fire happened weeks after the rally ended, but Meade County Commission Chairman Alan Aker told the Rapid City Journal a large fire during the event has “always been one of my nightmares.”

Had the fire occurred during the rally with thousands of people in the saloon and patio and thousands of motorcycles clogging the nearby highway, “it would have been a disaster,” Assistant Fire Chief Shawn Barrows said.

The cause of the blaze that destroyed the $10 million saloon has been ruled accidental. Investigators with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives took photographs, inspected artifacts recovered from the scene and conducted numerous interviews before the cause of the fire was determined, special agent in charge James Modzelewski said.

The business was billed as “The World’s Largest Biker Bar,” and it had been the subject of the truTV series “Full Throttle Saloon,” which aired for several seasons starting in 2009.

The county didn’t have a building code until 2010, and fire-safe construction standards haven’t been applied retroactively. Infrastructure also is lacking, and many of the 48 outlying campground areas do not have water systems that can support sprinklers and fire hydrants.

“We talk about the need for infrastructure, but it seems like it never gets built or built to the quality and duration needed for the event,” said Kirk Chaffee, the county’s director of equalization and planning. “This is an underscoring of a recognized need that is yet to be met.”

Annexation by the city of Sturgis is an option to bring higher-pressure water lines and stricter fire-safety regulations out to some developing rural areas, but it has been a divisive topic. The city tried years ago to annex an area that included the Full Throttle Saloon, only to see owner Michael Ballard petition the matter to a public vote in 2010 in which annexation was rejected.

Many who resist annexation are “worried about the increased cost that comes with it,” City Manager Daniel Ainslie said.

Ballard said his saloon was safe, with six large roll-up doors in the bar that could have served as exit points during a fire.

“People could have gotten out of there … my donkey was smart enough to get out of there,” he said, referring a pet that escaped the fire.