125 Flee Downtown Hotel Fire

Arson is suspected in a fire wmch early this morning burned out a room in a downtown hotel and sent 125 guests fleeing down Fire Department ladders and swinging to safety on bed sheets. B Four persons were taken to hospitals as a result of the dawn blaze at the Ann Arbor Inn, 100 S. Fourth Ave. at E. Huron St. One guest escaped serious injury when a bedsheet he was using as a rope broke and he fell to a roof beneath him. Ann Arbor Police Chief Walter E. Krasny and Fire Chief Fred Schmid said the blaze in a corner room on the seventh floor of the hotel was possibly the work of an arsonist. Chief Schmid said Fire Marshal Nolan Lee and Deputy Fire Marshal Benjamin Zahn Jr. are working with Chief Krasny's detectives on the investigation. Chief Krasny said the prime suspect was a guest in the Ann Arbor Inn who served a year in prison in Montgomery Countf Teniiessefe'r far an arson connected crime. The chief said the suspect also has pleaded guilty to extortion in Tennessee. "The suspect is known and will be available when and if the warrant is requested," Chief Krasny said. Chief Schmid said 40 firefighters manning seven pieces of equipment were dispatched to the Ann Arbor Inn at 5:13 a.m. today. Fire Capt. George Hastings, who responded with his company from central fire headquarters a block from the hotel, said flames were shooting out more than 15 feet from the seventh floor room when his men arrived on the scène. That room, Number 721, is located on the northwest corner of the hotel and is on the E. Huron St. side. Capt. Hastings immediately radioed for additional help and efforts to evacuate the 125 guests in the 11-story hotel began at once. The Fire Department's aerial ladder was hoisted on the S. Fourth Ave. side of the building and firemen scampered to the seventh floor level to help frightened guests down to safety. Meanwhile firefighters on the E. Huron St. side of the structure used another ladder to shoot water into the seventh floor room where flames were belching out. Capt. Hastings said the entire interior of Room 721 was burned out by the flames and the heat in the seventh floor hallway was so intense doors of other rooms burst into flame. Smoke from the burning room filled the hallways, trapping guests on both sides of the hall in their rooms, he said. The captain said the fire burned the door of Room 721 off and the heat channeled down the hallway burning the numbers off doors of other guest rooms. Although hotel offjcials provided firemen with a list of seventh floor guests and their location smoke mask-wearing firefighters had to burrow their way through the hazy corridor checking each room as they passed because the numbers had been burned away. H When firemen were able to reach the room where the fire began they quickly extinguished the blaze. At one point a fireman on the aerial ladder smashed a window on the seventh level on the S. Fourth Ave. side of the hotel and shouted inside. When he I ceived no answer he pulled on a smoke mask and climbed inside to find the cupants had already fled the smoke-filled I floor. , Those taken to University Hospital elude Robert Trotter, 38, who is in fair condition from smoke inhalation and is in the Intensive Care Unit; and Robert Shotwell, a Northwest Oriënt Airlines I pilot, who was released after treatment; At St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Raymond I Hill of San Carlos, Calif. was in good condition and Mary E. Boucek of Coral Gables, Fla. was admitted. Stand pipes in the walls of the hotel I supplied firemen with water and a I pumper truck was jped on the aerial ladj : ... B der. A platform aerial ladder was sent to the scène by the Ypsilanti Township Fire Department but Chief Schrnid said it was not needed. That piece of equipment is the only platform aerial in Washtenaw County. I The Ann Arbor department's aerial I ladder would not have been long enough to reach higher than the seventh floor of the hotel. Fire officials here have long expressed concern about responsibility for fire safety in high-rise buildings in the city and have urged builders to in stall automatic sprinkler systems when large structures are being erected. The Ann Arbor Inn does not have such a system. There were two reports on how the Fire Department was alerted. Both involve individuals unable to reach phones I and running to the central fire headquarI ters to arouse firemen. M ' Assistant Chief Ralph Teeter said ■ George Housner of Whitmore Lake told firehouse when he was unable to receive I an answer to his pounding on a locked I door. A Detroit News reporter who lives I in Ann Arbor and daily rides a Greyhound bus to work reported his bus driver, Bud Goza of Flint, saw the flames as he pulled into the city in his car. He said Goza looked for a fire alarm box and when he found none dashed to the fire headquarters and broke the glass when he did not get an answer to his doorpounding. Ann Arbor depends on telephone calis for its fire alarms. There has not been a street fire box alarm system in operation here in years. While there was heavy smoke damage throughout the seventh floor of the Ann Arbor Inn, Guy Smith, .manager of the business, said late this morning all other floors are usable today. He said guest rooms on the sixth floor received some water damage but virtually all rooms above and below the seventh floor are I available for guests. There waJdolla"r estímate of damage. jP