Mattress fire forces hotel evacuation in W. Philly
Julius Williams, a desk clerk at the Blue Moon Hotel in West Philadelphia, walked into work shortly before 9 Friday morning and saw smoke in the first-floor hallway and "frantic people."
Julius Williams, a desk clerk at the Blue Moon Hotel in West Philadelphia, walked into work shortly before 9 Friday morning and saw smoke in the first-floor hallway and "frantic people."
"I pulled the fire alarm and told everybody to get out," Williams, 25, said.
He then grabbed the fire hose off the wall from a storage closet "and pulled it to Room 18," in the back of the first floor.
"The bed was in flames. It may be from cigarettes. All we know is the bed was on fire," he said.
No one was in the room. The occupant or occupants had already checked out, he said. Hotel staff is still investigating to determine who was in the room.
Williams quickly gave the fire hose to the hotel owner, then ran back to the storage closet to turn the water on for the hose, then called 911 on a pay phone in the hallway.
Firefighters soon arrived to the three-story hotel with blue window awnings on the 5100 block of Westminster Avenue.
Williams said the hotel owner was already hosing down the fire when the firefighters got there shortly after 9 a.m. The fire was extinguished in about five to 10 minutes.
During that time, Williams was holding open the front door and rushing people out.
The hotel has 80 rooms and about half were occupied overnight, he said.
"People ran out back and people ran out front," he said.
A Fire Department spokesman was not available to provide details on the fire.
"I got here at 8:50 and this was going on," Williams said in a phone interview. "I have to jump into fireman mode. This is the craziest day."
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