Smoke from a kitchen fire forced all of the guests from the Travelodge Hotel to evacuate the building.
Thunder Bay Firefighters responded to a call about a fire at the Memorial Avenue hotel just after 5 a.m. on Saturday. Firefighters arrived and located the fire in the kitchen of the hotel’s dining room.
Firefighters say they had to evacuate the entire hotel because of smoke conditions.
Hotel patrons stayed on Thunder Bay Transit buses while firefighters investigated the incident. A few hours later, firefighters officials say the fire conditions were under control however patrons were not allowed to return to their rooms as fire and smoke damage was significant.
Firefighters reported no injuries.
Acting Platoon Chief David Nelson said he wasn’t sure how many guests there were but thought there had to be more than a dozen. He said plans were being made to relocate the guests to another Travelodge Hotel.
“Our first concern was getting all the residents out of the hotel before we even considered suppressing the fire,” Nelson said. “To my knowledge they are not suspecting foul play at this time. There was a significant amount of damage.”
Nelson said the fire marshal has been called but wouldn’t be arriving to the scene until sometime Monday morning and until then whole building will remain closed.
