The Hampton Inn in Spring Hill was evacuated this morning.
At 9:35am Spring Hill Fire arrived on the scene to calls of a fire on the first floor, Fire Chief Terry Hood said. Towels in dryer in the laundry room caught fire.
“However a fire call turned into an evacuation call,” Hood said.
A representative for the hotel said that guests had been evacuated.
A ventilation shaft pushed smoke into all four floors, necessitating a full evacuation of all guests. This poses a higher risk at a hotel because the windows do not open.
Hood said at a normal call, fans and open windows would have made this much easier, but it took about two hours to make the hotel safe.
The hotel management had turned off the alarm, which Hood said they should not have done. He will be sending information out to all Spring Hill businesses to let them know.
“It is the fire department who turns off all alarms,” he said.
What started as towels catching on fire could have been worse, he said.
