Police help guests from burning hotel

Press, 18 April 1978, Page 1

Police help guests from burning hotel

PA Dunedin The third hotel fire in Queenstown in a little over eight years has extensively damaged part of the roof structure of the Vacation Queenstown Hotel — formerly the Ramada — and caused smoke and water damage to most of the 80bedroomed building. The hotel, in Frankton Road, had 84 guests. The fire broke out near the dining and service areas just before 4 p.m. The Queenstown police said last night that all guests had been cleared safely from the hotel. However, the police had to help two guests from the smoke-filled building after they had been found in their rooms, apparently not aware of the fire. The police last night

were referring inquiries from many parts ot New Zealand about the safety of guests, to the Vacation Frankton Hotel, near Queenstown — where the area manager of the Vacation Hotel group (Mr L. S. Dennis) said all those affected by the fire would be accommodated. Two units from the Queenstown Volunteer Fire Brigade attended the fire, which had a good hold in the roof of the hotel when they arrived and was sending up dense clouds of yellow smoke. Firemen attacked the fire from the roof and from inside the building, using breathing apparatus, and had it under control in less than an hour. At times flames could be seen in the ceilings of bedrooms and in the highroofed dining-room, but damage to bedrooms was mainly smoke and water.

Hotel staff removed guests’ baggage and some furniture and fittings from the reception area during the fire. Mr Dennis said that al! guests’ personal effects had been recovered from the building and did not appear to be too badly affected.

He was not able to give an estimate of the damage, or say how long the hotel would be closed but he said fire prevention officers and insurance assessors would inspect it today. The hotel was built in 1972 as the Ramada Inn.

Two previous hotel fires have occurred in Queenstown in recent years. On New Year’s Day, 1970, the 53-bed White Star Hotel in the centre of the town was gutted, on June 5. 1972, an early morning fire razed the dining and service area of an old section of the Trans Hotel.