Fire investigators are working to determine whether an afternoon fire at a Lee Highway motel may have been sparked by a methamphetamine lab, a fire official said.

“Based on observations on how fast the fire spread and an apparent past history of meth labs at that motel, the haz-mat personnel are using special chemical monitoring devices to help confirm whether or not a meth lab was involved,” department spokesman Bruce Garner said in a prepared statement.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, Mr. Garner said.

Firefighters battled the blaze for more than an hour Monday. It produced smoke that was visible from Interstate 75 and resulted in a firefighter being treated for heat exhaustion, Mr. Garner said.

The fire apparently broke out in a second-floor room and then spread to the attic, making it a difficult blaze to extinguish, Mr. Garner said.

The 79-room hotel had 20 occupied rooms when the fire broke out, said owner Sanjay Acharya.

Some guests told firefighters they did not hear a fire alarm, Mr. Garner said. Instead, a front-desk clerk knocked on every door in the hotel and rushed guests to safety, Mr. Garner said.

The lack of fire and smoke alarms is an allegation the fire department will investigate, he said.

Mr. Acharya said he bought the hotel two months ago, and the building passed a fire department inspection a week ago. He said all the rooms had fire alarms and smoke detectors.

Some guests said they were living in the motel on a semi-permanent basis and the fire devastated their lives.

“We lost everything. We’re homeless,” said Denise Barron, who came to Chattanooga from New Mexico with her boyfriend to search for jobs. Their employment prospects fell through, she said, and they had planned to check out of the hotel Tuesday.

“All our stuff, my ID and everything, is up in the room,” Ms. Barron said.

Greater Chattanooga Area Red Cross is providing temporary lodging, said Claudia Moore, the charity’s spokeswoman.

For complete coverage, read tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Comments