Firefighters tamped out a fire at the Sitka Hotel on Friday night.
Around 10 p.m. on Friday, the fire hall received reports of smoke in the building of the Sitka Hotel alongside an alert from the hotel’s fire alarm company. In an interview with KCAW, Acting Fire Chief Rob Janik said 18 fire hall personnel, including nine staff and nine volunteers, responded.
When they arrived on the scene, they found light smoke throughout the building, but could not identify where the smoke was coming from. They explored each floor of the building from top to bottom, using thermal imaging detectors to search for hotspots in the walls.
Shortly before 11:30 p.m., they located the smoke’s source inside the wall between the hotel restaurant’s kitchen and bar area on the first floor. Janik said the fire hadn’t burned through the wall yet, but the paint in the area was beginning to bubble. The team used tools to tear the wall apart and started applying water to the blaze. Janik said it took around five minutes to get the fire under control, but they had to remove more of the wall afterwards to ensure they extinguished the entire source of the burn.
No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Janik said Friday’s response was a team effort, and was grateful for support from police, city administration, the city’s electric department, and volunteers who helped ensure the problem was safely solved.
Janik asks that Sitkans pay attention when they hear a fire alarm, take appropriate action like calling the fire department, and evacuate the area.
