ST.GEORGE – Thursday evening a fire started in the ceiling of a hotel room at the Quality Inn on Bluff Street in St. George when a fan failed and ignited insulation around 8 p.m. The Fire Department responded shortly and extinguished the fire, which had continued to smolder despite efforts made by hotel staff with a fire extinguisher.
A high school baseball team from Spanish Fork had rented the block of rooms, and the people who were staying in the room were not present at the time the fire started. However, a concerned teammate occupying one of the adjacent rooms took action.
“I could smell smoke, had the office make me a key, walked in there and there was a fire in the bathroom,” Jade Nielsen said. “I told the guy in the office, he sprayed it with a fire extinguisher, and then the fire trucks showed up.”
Upon arriving, responders evacuated the occupants of surrounding rooms, and pulled out ceiling panels to fully extinguish what was left of the fire.
“We responded typically as if it were a structure fire,” Deputy Chief Kevin Taylor said. “We narrowed it down to the bathroom area, and apparently the ventilation fan in the bathroom malfunctioned. The fire was smoldering in the attic insulation.”
There were no injuries related to the incident, and minimal property damage was reported.
Fire crews responded to a similar incident at the Howard Johnson Hotel in St. George on Feb. 15.
St. George Fire Chief Robert Stoker said the problem with exhaust fans is that dust and lint – which are very flammable – collect around the motor and cause it to overheat, thus sparking a fire.
St. George News Assistant Editor Mori Kessler contributed to this article.
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