THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 22, 1996 TAG: 9606220265
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER MCMENAMIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: 83 lines
Alan Pearce ended his 24-hour shift at the Roanoke Rapids Fire Department at 8 a.m. Friday. Then he and fellow firefighter Donnie Wright drove three hours for a short Outer Banks vacation before their Sunday shift.
They checked into the oceanfront Comfort Inn in South Nags Head and hit the beach. They were returning to their car in front of the hotel when they smelled something burning.
``I just happened to look back over my shoulder and saw the flame in the window,'' Pearce said. ``The smoke was so thick and black that I couldn't see anything else.''
They raced to the check-in desk, Pearce said, told employees about the top-floor fire and ``took off running up the steps.''
``We couldn't kick down the door, but the door wasn't too hot so I wasn't too worried about a big flame,'' he said.
By that time, a hotel employee had taken a key up to Room 712. When the door was opened, Pearce - dressed for vacation in red running shorts, tennis shoes and a gray fire company T-shirt - grabbed a hallway fire extinguisher and headed for the flames near the window.
Using four or five fire extinguishers, Pearce and Wright quelled the accidental fire in which no one was hurt and waited for the local firefighters.
``I just got off at 8 a.m.,'' Pearce said, holding a blackened white towel that he used to shield his face from the thick smoke. ``I came for a night of relaxation and the first thing I have to do is fight a fire.''
The two-alarm blaze - which Pearce spotted at about 1:30 p.m. - drew fire companies from Nags Head, Roanoke, Kill Devil Hills, Colington, Duck and Kitty Hawk, in addition to the Nags Head Police Department, the Nags Head Building Inspection Department, the Dare County Emergency Medical Service and the Dare County Fire Marshal.
More than 50 firefighters and EMS workers converged on the 105-room hotel, which Nags Head Fire Chief Kevin Zorc described as ``packed'' with people.
``They (Pearce and Wright) knocked down the bulk of the fire, but there was still some left,'' Zorc said. ``There was still some open flame and a lot of heat in the room that took some water.''
Although the the non-combustible construction of the building confined the fire to the room, thick smoke spread through the sixth and seventh floor hallways, Zorc said.
The biggest job, the fire chief said, was ventilating the building of the smoky haze.
The fire, started by an electrical short in the heating and air conditioning unit, caused an estimated $10,000 worth of damage and kept hotel guests outside for an hour and a half, Zorc said.
Suzanne Snyder, a Nashville, Tenn., resident attending the Seaboard Medical Association conference in the hotel, was across the hall when the smoke and fire alarms rang out.
``I heard them trying to break the door down,'' she said. ``When they finally got in, black smoke came out of the room and literally filled the whole top of the hallway.
``It was almost surreal because it (the smoke) was hanging at the top but it was completely clear below,'' she said. ``I guess that's why they tell you to crawl.''
Zorc said the fire reinforces the importance of smoke detectors.
``This was a big fire, but even a small fire from a smoldering appliance or furniture with a lit cigarette can create an incredible amount of toxic smoke from burning plastics and materials and can become very insidious,'' he said. ``If in fact this fire had happened at nighttime when people were asleep and the smoke detector hadn't woke them up, most certainly we could have had a tragic situation with serious injuries or even deaths.''
Dale Manning, the hotel guest of room 712, said his room contained nothing but the ``normal stuff'' he brought from Winterville, N.C., to attend the Seaboard Medical Association conference.
Manning was on the sixth floor visiting a friend's room when the alarms sounded. ``We heard the alarm and thought someone had been playing with the alarm,'' he said. ``But then my wife saw the manager and asked what room it was. She said `712' and it was like oh Lordy.''
Only three hotel rooms - damaged by smoke, fire and electrical shorts - remained closed late Friday afternoon, Zorc said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DREW C. WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot
Jeff Henson and wife Linn return to the Comfort Inn, after the South
Nags Head hotel was evacuated following a seventh-floor fire Friday.
Two Roanoke Rapids firefighters, Alan Pearce and Donnie Wright, had
just checked in to the hotel when they smelled something burning,
rushed upstairs and grabbed fire extinguishers to help quell the
blaze that broke out in a patron's room. by CNB