A massive fire broke out in a fully occupied hotel in Killeen, Tex., late Friday, raging for several hours while the sprinkler system was disabled by frozen pipes, officials said.
Firefighters arrived around 8:30 p.m. local time and saw flames and huge columns of smoke rising from the roof of the structure. The inferno soon spread, eventually engulfing other parts of the building.
Seven emergency agencies responded to the blaze, which was not contained until after midnight, officials said. Authorities have not identified a cause. A representative of the hotel could not immediately be reached for comment.
As a precaution, crews shut off power in the surrounding area while they fought the flames, according to Mellisa Brown, a Killeen City Council member.
“My concern was the fire spreading and engulfing the residential neighborhood behind the hotel,” Brown said in an interview. “There was this huge sigh of relief when I saw the electricity being turned back on. I knew that the immediate danger was over.”
Brown said she learned about the fire around the time firefighters were dispatched and immediately rallied a group of about 10 volunteers to drive to the scene and help people find shelter. A taxi service also volunteered to transport people, and authorities brought in a bus to take others to safety.
All of the Hilton Garden Inn’s 102 rooms were occupied when the fire began, and many of the guests were local residents who had checked in to the hotel after the harsh weather left them with low water pressure or no water service at home, Brown said.
One Killeen resident, Terry Miller, said he and his family left their home after going without lights and water since Sunday. For a moment, they thought they’d found refuge in the hotel. Then employees knocked on the door and told them to evacuate.
“An alarm went off, and they told us, ‘Get out, fire is on the fifth floor,’” Miller told the Killeen Daily Herald. “I just grabbed a couple of items. I left the rest of the stuff. I grabbed my wife and told my kids and we ran out of there.”
The hallways were filling with smoke and flames were consuming the building as they fled, he said.
“We get in here and now this happens,” he said. “It just breaks my heart, but I’m glad they got everybody out of there.”
Some guests were relocated to a warming center at a nearby church, where volunteers had stockpiled food, toiletries and other essentials. Others were picked up by family members and friends in the area, or went to stay at other nearby hotels for the night.
“We had people who were going to be displaced and needed a place to get out of the cold,” Brown said. “Everybody was taken care of. I’m really proud of all of our citizens. We had people saying, ‘I have power, I have water, come stay with me, let me make you some food.’ Our community has pulled together in a way that you don’t see in a lot of big cities.”
Fire officials told local media that one hotel guest was treated for minor injuries at the scene and that two others went to a hospital to be checked for smoke inhalation.
Several Fort Hood soldiers were among those evacuated. “This fire is another reminder to check in with each other,” read a statement on the Fort Hood Facebook page.
The Killeen community has been pummeled by the winter storms and subfreezing conditions in recent days. Many residents lost electricity this week as power outages throughout the state left millions of Texans in the dark. Icy roads and a lack of snowplowing equipment have prevented delivery trucks from entering the city, resulting in bare shelves at grocery stores.
Making matters worse, large pipes have frozen and ruptured, causing water pressure to plummet across the city and triggering widespread water shortages. Water rationing and boil-water advisories were in effect citywide, and officials warned residents Friday that restoring service could take weeks.
The city’s water troubles may have prevented firefighters from more quickly gaining control of the blaze at the hotel. “Firefighting efforts were hindered due to automatic sprinkler system being out of service because of frozen pipes,” the fire department told local media.
The low water pressure and electrical outages put other aspects of the fire response at risk, too, Brown said.
“I was terrified that we’d have loss of life, knowing that the water pressure is low,” she said. “God forbid; that would have been a residential area.”
