Investigators look into suspicious fire at Kalamazoo hotel

*Correction: A previous version of this article’s headline misstated the city in which the fire happened. It was in Kalamazoo. We regret the error, which has been fixed.

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — A Kalamazoo hotel that caught fire Sunday has been condemned by the fire marshal.

A notice was posted on the charred building at 3 p.m. Sunday, saying it was to be evacuated immediately due to fire, water, smoke and structural damage.

Firefighters were called to the fire at Days Inn and Suites on Airview Boulevard off of Portage Road in Kalamazoo around 1:40 p.m. Sunday after the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety received reports of heavy smoke from passersby on I-94.

No one hurt in Kalamazoo hotel fire near airport

By the time crews arrived, flames were coming from the second-story roof and people coming out of the first and second floors. One couple had to break a window to get out, fire marshal Scott Brooks said.

“They used the bedsheets that were in their room to lower themselves out the window and we’re talking I mean, that’s a second-floor apartment or a second-floor hotel room so you’re 18 feet off the ground and then they had to break the window to get out because the windows aren’t made to open for people to exit, it’s just made to open to let air in,” Brooks explained.

The fire started in what would be considered a conference room and spread a little bit in each direction due to the construction of the building.

It took firefighters about an hour and a half to put out the flames. Several neighboring fire agencies including Portage, Comstock and Oshtemo were all called in to assist.

The fire marshal is investigating the blaze as suspicious because he said the location of the fire should not have been an area where a fire would ever have any reason to occur.

“At the time there should not have been anybody in this area because it’s a conference room and there’s not any sort of cooking appliances or anything else like that,” Brooks said.

He added that because this is a large loss fire, there will be a lot of follow-up. Part of the building collapsed and there was smoke and water damage throughout.

Just two days before the fire, the entire hotel had been rented out for an event, but when the fire occurred, only seven rooms were being rented. Brooks said he’s thankful it didn’t happen when more people were staying there.

The Red Cross was working with displaced residents Sunday, but Brooks said because that the hotel is not a permanently occupied building, the nonprofit was unable to help put people in a new place. Hotel management is working with the guests to make sure they have a new place to stay nearby. Several of the people were extended-stay guests.

The fire marshal will spend the next week, if not more working with other investigators and sorting through the information he has so far.

“I need to substantiate the actual information that we’re given, right, so there’s a lot of cameras out there and there’s a lot of people to talk to,” Brooks said. “We can’t rule anything out.”

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