mglvrug

+1 ^

alecheverry

Just did a search for "hotel fire" on google news.....scary the number of fires in just the last 2-3 weeks......This is very common:


El paso: https://www.google.com/search?q=Hote...w=1242&bih=602

Holiday inn: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...cpbHh95O-2Rqzw

Marion Hotel: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...0WeIB2mwgXfKtw


Many more in NJ, London etc,

RichardInSF

I agree this is an important topic -- but is the advice given up to date given how old the thread is?

I checked out the four hotel fires mentioned in the preface of the post. The NEWEST is the hotel Thomas from 1961 --more than 55 years ago! The other three are all from the 1940s.

Maybe the state of the art has advanced since it was written? Not sure, just asking.

CDTraveler

Most of the advice here seems to apply to "big box" hotels, and while it's good advice, especially checking out the escape route, I think it's also important to consider escape from "quainter" lodgings.

For example, we stayed in a 3rd floor flat via AirBnB a while back. One of things I looked for before booking was that it had a fire escape clearly visible in an outside shot of the building.

At home I have a folding fire escape ladder in the upstairs guest bedroom, positioned ready for use right under the window. In B and B type lodgings, I check for similar escape ladders or a conventional fire escape.

Like others here, I always carry a compact flashlight or two with me, because it's too easy to get confused in the dark in a strange place and lose track of how many doors it is to the exit.

obscure2k

Thanks for the comments. I agree that this thread should be updated. The Moderators will review and update. In the meantime, as we do our research, we will let the existing posts stand for now
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

ATOBTTR

The only thing I can think of that may be different (after reading the initial OP and then seeing it was from 2001) would be to say in addition to keeping your key in a place that's easy to grab, have your phone and wallet sitting right there with it so they're just as easy to grab (cell-phones would not have been as prevalent in 2001 when this thread was first posted). Your cell phone would provide an additional way to contact rescue personal and possibly help guide them to your location (assuming you can figure out where you are). Most phones can also double as a flashlight (which many people have mentioned keeping on hand). Other than that, what would you say about the advice offered needs to be updated?

Finkface

I forwarded this thread to a friend of mine just last week. He is a former firefighter and fire inspector. He thought the information was excellent amd something everyone should make part of their routine when checking into a hotel.

The only piece of advice he could improve on was that you should never prop open any door in an exit stairwell, including and especially the one at the top. Most fire exit stairwells are pressurized and have ventilation fans to keep smoke out of the stairwells. It is designed to compensate for the opening and closing of doors as people exit but propping open any door will allow the pressure to drop in the stairwell causing a chimney effect and thereby sucking smoke into it the stairwell. He said people who die in a fire generally don't die from being burned, they die because of the smoke. So don't ever prop open any door, especially at the top, in an exit stairwell.

Kagehitokiri

fires were chosen because of number of deaths in US

general discussions of physical security, rather than technological/gadgets

these kinds of threads make great ongoing threads

depends on property and length of stay for me

but i dont plan to do a second transoceanic crossing

Burnsie

A brilliantly worded article from someone who obviously knows what they're talking about. As someone who travels a lot with work and stays in hotels for a week at a time, information like this is priceless. I have forwarded this around the office, hopefully it strikes a nerve with my colleagues as much as it did with me.

profnot

Terrific post! I am copying it and sending to my traveling friends. Good on you, OP and contributors!!!


I once had a room near the top of the Chateau Frontenac hotel in Quebec City. The fire alarm went off. I quickly exited to the street.

Turned out, the alarm was set off by young pranksters so all was OK.

While waiting on the street for the All Clear, I stood near a group of 60ish-age travellers who had come by coach. The women were laughing. I soon realized why. Their well-groomed dignified husbands all wore silly pyjamas. Cowboys, dinosaurs, Jetson-style space ships, teddy bears, and other foolish nonsense adorned their PJs.

I joined the women roaring with laughter.

Burnsie

This evening I checked into a hotel for the first time since reading this post. As the hard-hitting words were still fresh in my mind, as soon as I dropped my suitcase on the bed I checked the exit route, as was emphasised in the article:

Hopefully this will eventually become "normal" and I'll do it without even thinking too much about it, like wearing a safety belt in a car. And hopefully everyone else who reads this will do the same.

Kamalaasaa

Great thread!

One thing to add - after you have evacuated, get away from the building so falling debris, breaking glass, etc. won't hit you and don't stand in a driveway, parking lot, or anywhere else that you could block emergency vehicles.

i am amazed every year during fire drills at work when people dutifully evacuate and then just stop once outside, as if that were good enough.

At a previous employer people congregating in the driveways and near the building blocked the fire trucks during what turned out to be a real roof fire (tar from repair work). Firefighters were not pleased!

EDIT: After thinking about my post, j would add this advice. Determine where you will go if you have to evacuate. In a suburban location there might be a lawn you can go to to get away from the building, but where will you go if you are in a downtown hotel surrounded by other buildings?

And if you are traveling with other people and not staying in adjacent rooms, do you have a plan for meeting up in the case of a building evacuation?

CKA1

When I get to a room now, I do check the exits, fire escapes and often, the choke points in the hallway. If an alarm goes off, what are my signals? I once slept through a fire alarm at a hostel, because I thought it was an alarm clock. It was a false alarm, but I could have died because I wasn't prepared for such an event.

When I'm getting ready for bed, my things I think of is, (A) where are my pants, shirt and shoes, (B) where is my phone, room key and wallet and (C) where are the emergency lights, the fire alarms and the fire bells. If I were to get up at 0230 to the sound of a fire bell, will I get up, or assume it's a false alarm and do nothing. I look in the room to see if there is a light which would go on, and if not, I look for one in the hallway.

Being in that hostel and finding out hours later that it was a fire alarm that went off was disturbing. I really appreciate this thread.

I heard from my Dad years ago when he was traveling for work several days a month. He was in a hotel where the alarm went off. People crowded into the stairwell and they started to stampede. He was among the first out of the hotel, but there were people mildly hurt when the people behind him started to push their way out of the exit stairwells. For that reason, I want to be the first one out, not the fiftieth or five hundredth.

I do keep my room key and wallet in my pants. The pants are hung on the chair in the room, or at a similar place which can be found in the dark. My phone is at my beside. If necessary, I would leave the building in my underwear, but I figure fifteen seconds to put my shirt, shoes and pants is worth it. And I make sure I can do it by, ahead of time, looking where my necessary clothing is, and looking how to get out.

Chuck

shaner82

I'm a firefighter and the only thing I'd like to add is every situation is different. Sometimes you are better off staying in your room. Smoke can kill you faster than you realize. Depending on the toxins in the smoke, a single breath may be all that is needed to cause you to collapse. If there is super heated gases in the hallway, you will likely burn to death from the inside out before you get to the stairway.

There's no one solution. If there's no smoke, then by all means, get out. If there is smoke, you have to use your discretion. High rise hotels are constructed of a lot of materials that burn slow or don't burn at all. You might be safer in your room then trying to fight through thick smoke. Unfortunately there's no way to know that ahead of time. You need to view the conditions in the hallway and decide whether you feel you can safely get through it. If you don't have confidence you can get through, stay in your room. If you do venture out and find conditions immediately unbearable, don't keep going, just go back to your room.

cubbie

Thanks for your post, shaner82, because as I read through this thread for the first time, my biggest question was, how do you decide whether to stay in your room or try to get out of the building?

The only time I had to evacuate a hotel because of a fire alarm, I went to the emergency exit stairwell and found there a colleague, an elderly gentleman who had recently had a stroke and was unsteady on his feet. He was standing at the top of the stairs, anxious and reluctant to walk down. I stayed with him and we walked down slowly (I remember one of his shoes fell off, and like the old Texan he was, he joked, as if he were a horse, "whoa, threw a shoe"). By the time we got down some 10 flights of stairs, the all-clear was being sounded. Turned out the fire was confined to the hotel kitchen and no fire or smoke ever spread to the towers where the guest rooms were. I suppose we were always safe in the emergency exit stairwell (given that there was no smoke), but it was a physically and emotionally stressful experience for this gentleman. If I'd been alone, I still would have left the building, but given the absence of smoke or heat or fire, I still wonder if helping that man down 10 flights of stairs was a better choice than helping him back to his room, keeping the door closed, and calling to let someone know where we were.

What little fire safety training many of us have, often learned as children in school, is that you have to get out of the building and you will get in trouble with someone if you don't.

I suppose, to make this comment more general, my point is that one sometimes has to think not only of whether and how to get yourself out but also whether and how to get others (children, those with limited mobility, those who are panicking, etc.) out.