Lack of hotel sprinklers 'common'

Fire Service fire safety officer Barry Gibson examines the evidence inside the charred ruins of a room at the Kingsgate Hotel in Dunedin. Photo by Stephen Jaquiery.

It is unclear when a Dunedin hotel will reopen after a major fire gutted a room and caused significant damage to several floors on Monday night.

An investigation yesterday revealed the fire started around a lamp near a bed in a hotel room on the second floor of the 55-room Kingsgate Hotel in Smith St.

Fire Service fire safety officer Barry Gibson said the occupants of the room had run from it when the fire started, leaving the door open and allowing the fire to spread quickly.

The room and the nearby hallway were damaged extensively by fire, while four nearby rooms, which also had their doors open, were significantly damaged by heat and smoke.

There was some water damage and the entire building sustained smoke damage.

About 30 guests were evacuated when the alarm was raised.

The Fire Service said yesterday the hotel could have stayed open if it had had fire sprinklers installed, but the hotel's management said it had complied with all the fire regulations, and hoped to reopen at least some rooms "soon".

In the main, commercial buildings in New Zealand are required to have fire-alarm systems, evacuation plans and a certain number of fire exits, but the building code does not require sprinklers to be installed.

Fire Service east Otago assistant area commander Trevor Tilyard said the Fire Service endorsed the installation of sprinklers because they could stop a fire quickly.

A water-sprinkler system would have contained the damage to the room where the Kingsgate fire started, he said.

Sprinkler systems could also detect a fire, send an alert to the Fire Service, and help put the fire out. Only a few of Dunedin's hotels had sprinkler systems installed, he said.

The vice-president of operations for the Millennium, Copthorne and Kingsgate Hotels NZ, Matt Taplin, of Auckland, said the extent of damage to the Kingsgate, while reasonably significant, was still being assessed by an insurance assessor yesterday.

Until that was complete, it would not be known when the hotel would reopen, although he anticipated it would be trading again with some rooms "soon".

The hotel complied with all fire regulations. Regulations did not require hotels to have sprinkler systems, although they were often installed these days, when a hotel was constructed, he said.

He believed not having sprinklers was likely to be common in hotels.

Although the Kingsgate was recently refurbished, a sprinkler system was something that might be considered at the next major overhaul of the hotel, he said.

Mr Taplin said management was "very, very" pleased with the way staff had handled the evacuation, and they would continue to be paid until further information was known, he said.

About 30 guests, who were moved to alternative accommodation, had not been charged for the night and alternative accommodation was being arranged for those booked into the hotel in the immediate future.

Nine fire appliances and dozens of firefighters battled the blaze at its peak and firefighters remained on the scene until midnight.