Duke787

Good time to plug this great thread that's in TravelBuzz. Really should consider making it a Global sticky or at least a sticky in all of the Hotel forums.

How to Survive a Hotel Fire.

JDiver

This property is pretty much done for, at least for a year or more. In the meantime, https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilt...as-burned.html is probably the best place to discuss this and see various videos, photos, etc.

mrredskin

crazy. stayed there a couple of years ago in Chardonnay. lobby area was pretty nice but room left a bit to be desired. hopefully the rebuild will prompt a renovation of those that still remain.

ultimately glad that everyone escaped. staff was great.

flyerCO

Yes, but if system is turned off it still won't alarm if pulled.

arlflyer

Forest fires move at 10+ miles per hour. If the property waited for a smoke or heat-based alarm to trigger, it would have been far too late. And if they had pulled the alarm manually, the deafening noise would have hindered communication and possibly handicapped an evacuation effort. I'll leave it to the fire marshal and other authorities to do any investigating and pronounce compliance or lack thereof with codes or protocols, but from what I am reading, the staff at this property took the necessary steps to personally assure the safety of their guests the old fashioned way - with room checks - and got everyone out safely.

rittenhousesq

That sounds reasonable and level-headed, but I do wonder whether the hotel had any type of PA system they could have used to alert the guests? I live in a high rise building and in addition to the fire alarms, they have such a system.

moa999

Glad I copied some of those FB posts, as it appears someone has deleted the entire Facebook page.

little_dc

The staff got lucky to get everyone out! Thank God!. Evacuation 101 is pull alarm and make an announcement if they had the ability to do to. Running the halls is always the last way to get mass amount of people out. A human can only do so much and if there was smoke a human could pass out or not be able to get all all the rooms. The electronic systems should be rated to work in high heat and smoke.

Yes they need to investigate this and Hilton better make sure they have standards across all hotels and brands.

stc

FWIW, a Facebook post from a Hilton employee on the "Santa Rosa Firestorm Update" page said that there was a meeting with hotel employees and the owner of the hotel (since it was franchised) has already decided not to rebuild. Sadly I can't find that FB post again. (FB is terrible that way and searching is very hard.) There is another FB post (which I can find) from someone who said they were head of HR at the hotel, saying the 130 employees will be paid through the end of the month, but after that they all need new jobs.

muzthe42nd

Atrium Hospitality, who managed the property, have started a gofundme account for their team members who worked there. Not sure it's appropriate to link it here, but if anybody feels like donating it's on Atrium Hospitality's facebook page.

mnredfox

Wonder why, i assume insurance would pay for most of the cost to rebuild.

stc

I believe they said something like it would take too long and they wanted to put their resources elsewhere. For people following along here it appears there may have been some deferred maintenance and they may have been looking to "get out" before this happened.

Also, from at least one video the pool and the lower three buildings around the pool were not damaged (other than maybe smoke). It probably couldn't be reopened as a Hilton without a restaurant, etc., but it seems to me that it would be relatively easy to drop a trailer in for an office and open up some sort of limited service hotel.

Something is fishy in Santa Rosa.

I wonder if they think they can get more money by selling the property for houses or an office complex.

squeakr

I don’t think anything is fishy, because I commented on our last stay in September there was a lot of deferred maintenance that caused a lot of problems. As they are a franchisee I don’t think they’re super invested in rebuilding with all the time and effort it will take. It’s a prime spot for housing so don’t be surprised if you see luxury condos there in a year or two.

storewanderer

As has been pointed out, in a lot of threads on here, building new full service hotels is a little bit risky and there is such easier ROI with the limited service formats...

Add to it a place like Santa Rosa which is mostly leisure travelers, that is not densely populated and where there would probably be various concerns (both business and external) about building a really large property there which seems to be the only way a full service hotel is going to be worth the investment today...

This hotel pushed hard for a lot of events and that business is not always the easiest to come by. Though typical rates were on the high side, I would suspect occupancy rate was not great.

At least the old Red Lion down in Rohnert Park will remain (Doubletree).

beachmouse

While a certain level of insurance is likely required to satisfy any lien holders on the property, they also might not have paid for the riders that would provide enough to bring the rebuilt structure(s) up to current building code, which is likely a required action given the amount of damage to the complex as a whole.