A small fire at the Quality Inn, 1200 W. Gannon Drive, in Festus was quickly extinguished Sunday morning (Dec. 20), but the building had to be evacuated for several hours, Festus Fire Chief Kevin Cremer reported.
He said the department received a call about the incident at 10:08 a.m.
“When our crews arrived, they saw smoke showing from a room on the first floor. It was a room used for storage, with 10 to 15 mattresses,” Cremer said. “They had the fire under control in 10 to 15 minutes.
“They put out the fire and took the mattresses outside. They just isolated the room, shut the power off. We were there about three hours”
Cremer said that because the incident occurred close to hotel check-out time at 11 a.m. and many guests check out electronically and just leave their keys to their rooms in the rooms, it was difficult to determine how many guests had to be evacuated.
“I’d estimate there were 15 guests and eight employees evacuated,” Cremer said. “The building was evacuated before we arrived. Everyone got out safe. They were outside about three hours. We closed that part of the hotel. They (later) moved the guests to other parts of the building.”
Cremer said no injuries were reported.
“We don’t have a cause yet,” he said. “It doesn’t look suspicious, but it is under investigation.”
The Herculaneum and Crystal City fire departments and the Dunklin, Hematite and Jefferson R-7 fire protection districts helped with the call, while the Mapaville Fire Protection District moved up to cover for Festus Fire. The Joachim-Plattin Ambulance also responded to the scene.
Cremer said Festus Fire returned to the hotel the next day (Dec. 21) when an alarm went off around 10:40 a.m. However, no fire was found.
“It was really just a false alarm,” he said. “We checked and it was nothing.”