Hampton Inn fire damages rooms
An electronic testing device caught fire in a room at the Hampton Inn hotel on Ulster Avenue Saturday night, damaging six rooms, and forcing the second evacuation at the hotel in two weeks, according to Ulster Hose Chief Shawn Heppner.
Heppner said firefighters were called to the hotel at 1307 Ulster Avenue at 11:01 p.m. for an automatic alarm and a fire in an unknown room.
When firefighters entered the hotel, they found smoke on all floors and a moderate smoke condition on the second floor. Firefighters from Glasco Fire Department and Kingston Fire Department and town police were then called to the scene to assist, Heppner said.
Firefighters found a small fire in room 214, and were able to bring it within control within 20 minutes, but a lot of smoke remained in the building and extensive ventilation needed to be carried out, Heppner said.
Heppner said the biggest challenge firefighters faced was evacuating the 150 guests, who were staying in 55 different rooms, along with the approximately six staff members working in the four-story hotel, which contains 81 rooms.
Two contractors, who were exterminators working in the area, were staying in room 214, when they woke up to smoke and alarms in their room and they had found that the “metering equipment” had caught fire, Heppner said.
These two contractors were evaluated on the scene by Mobile Life paramedics and refused further treatment, Heppner said.
No other guests sustained injuries, Heppner added.
Guests were able to return to the lobby by 11:40 p.m. and were allowed back into their rooms by 12:30 a.m.
The six rooms on the second floor that were damaged were unable to occupied, Heppner said.
Guests who were displaced by the blaze, which was ruled by officials to be accidental, were accommodated within other rooms at the hotel, Heppner said.
Heppner said it isn’t the first time Ulster Hose has dealt with a fire sparked by an electronic device being charged.
On March 21, the hotel was evacuated, 12 workers were exposed to caustic fumes and a contractor who inhaled them was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries after accidently mixing a cleaning chemical with pool water containing chlorine.
Firefighters determined that incident to be caused by the contractor accidently mixing a “corrosive cleaner” with pool water.
Ulster Hose called for assistance from the Kingston Fire Department Hazmat Team and the mixture was “neutralized with water,” Heppner said.
Fumes spread throughout the hotel’s first floor and into the second and third floor stairwells but were easily ventilated.