An evacuation was ordered for a Buckhead Hotel after an early morning fire in a nearby parking garage.
Atlanta Fire officials reported that a car caught fire at 4:30 am on the second level of the deck adjacent to the Homewood Suites by Hilton, on Pharr Road. It then spread to another vehicle before igniting a pile of construction debris, fire Battalion Chief Ronald Slatton told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Slatton reported that the fire was quickly put out and contained only to the parking garage. Two people had to be evaluated because they were having difficulty breathing. Around 64 guests, not including staff who left as a precaution, were evacuated.
Slatton stated that “it definitely looked worse than it actually was.”
Brian Graham was one of those displaced. He had been living at the hotel for a month with his aunt, 75 years old, after a tree had fallen on his home. Around 4 am, Graham heard some commotion followed by a loud boom.
“I heard people shouting, “Fire! Fire!” So I got out of bed and dressed. I looked through the window. “I didn’t notice anything and opened the front door to check for smoke,” said he.
He said that there was a slight smell of smoke and the police started running down hallways, banging on doors, telling people to leave. He ran to his aunt who just had hip surgery.
Only Graham’s Aunt was admitted to hospital. Officials from the fire department were worried about Graham standing up for an extended period of time after surgery.
Graham said, as he was waiting to return inside: “I hope my car is not damaged.” The next task is to fix the car.
Aliyah Sall, a guest at the hotel, said that officials were not allowing people to check their vehicles “because there was still debris moving around”. She said she had been in her garage just a few minutes before the fire started.
She said: “We were in the garage, talking with a friend. I then went up to bed and woke about 30-45 minutes later, hearing all the chaos outside.” We come out and see the fires… It was a big, raging fire… Then we came back inside to a pile of mess.
Sall stated that the water had flooded the first and second floor and there was leakage on the roof. Sall was trying to transfer her reservation to another hotel.
She said, “It is a very messed-up situation at the moment.”
As guests waited on the streets for the go-ahead to return inside, firefighters worked to extinguish hotspots in the garage. Hotel officials were still trying to figure out how to relocate guests by midday as they repaired damaged areas.
It was unclear what caused the fire. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, according to officials.
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