List of hotel fires in the United States

[17] The building was fully ablaze minutes after the alarm bell sounded shortly after 3:00 a.m.[17] Soon after the fire team arrived, the roof collapsed, hampering rescue efforts.

Several people were killed leaping from the building, including William Oscar Webster, a railroad engineer from Columbus, Georgia, who had jumped from a fourth-floor window.

[17] Firemen reported that they later found a whole family dead in one room, a woman in a rocking chair, a man and a boy stretched across the bed, and a girl kneeling by it.

[19] The fire burned quickly through walls and doors and engulfed most of the hotel's 56 single rooms and 23 apartment units, where some 123 tenants were sleeping.

[19] A resident across the street reported that he awoke to hear "the worst screams I ever heard" and saw that half the block in which the hotel was located was completely ablaze.

[22][23] On August 3, 1944, George Holman, a 47-year old cafe proprietor, was found guilty in San Francisco of 22 counts of murder in the first degree for setting the fire.

[1] The fire started around 11:30 pm in a closet near the cocktail lounge on the ground floor and destroyed the four-story section of the building, which was built in 1891.

[1] As of 2021[update] it remained the deadliest hotel fire in United States history; it prompted many changes in building codes across the nation.

[35][36] Guests at the hotel included teenagers attending a Tri-Y Youth Conference organized by the YMCA in the city, Christmas shoppers, and people in town to see the film Song of the South.

Arnold Hardy, a 26-year-old graduate student at Georgia Tech, became the first amateur to win a Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his snapshot of a woman, later identified as survivor Daisy McCumber, in mid-air after jumping from the 11th floor of the hotel during the fire.

He immediately rang the fire alarm bell and rushed to wake guests by banging on room doors, but many were sleeping too soundly and he then ran out of the hotel.

[38] On November 18, 1963, a fire broke out in the Surfside Hotel convalescent home[40] in Atlantic City, New Jersey, killing 25 people, mostly elderly Jews.

[44] In September 1966, a fire broke out in the two-story 33-room frame Lane Hotel in the main business district of Anchorage, Alaska, killing 14 people.

Firefighting efforts were hampered by narrow streets and low water pressure and by 12:30 a.m. the fire had spread across the entire 300-foot front of the building.

[47] On March 20, 1970, a fire caused by arson broke out in the lobby of the Ozark Hotel in Seattle, Washington, at about 2:30 am (a clock on the second floor had melted, showing the time as 2:45).

It spread through two stairways and all the halls, killing 20 people (14 men and six women) and seriously injuring 10 others in a time span of 63 minutes until firefighters extinguished it.

[49] On September 13, 1970, a fire broke out in the Ponet Square Hotel at Pico Boulevard and Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, killing 19 people.

[52] On December 20, 1970, a fire broke out in the 11-story Pioneer International on the corner of North Stone Avenue and Pennington Street in Tucson, Arizona, killing 28 people, including several children and teenagers, and injuring 27.

[53] Although the hotel was supposed to be fireproof, synthetic carpeting, vinyl wall covering, painted doors and frames and open stairways fueled the spread of the fire, especially given that there were no sprinklers or smoke detectors.

Since the conversion, paranormal activity has frequently been reported in the building, including the smell of smoke during the night, running on the upper floors, lights turning on and off, and apparitions.

[56] The temperature at the time of the fire was well below zero; firefighters had to change clothes frequently after being drenched thawing out hoses and hydrants, and ice axes were used to search for victims.

[1][64] On January 28, 1978, a fire broke out in the six-story Coates House Hotel at 1005 Broadway in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, killing 20 people and injuring at least six.

[1] An arsonist, Gerald Willey of Randolph, Ohio, had poured gasoline on the carpet on the first floor of the two-story roadside motel and set it on fire with a lighted match.

[75] On November 21, 1980, a fire broke out in the MGM Grand Hotel (now Horseshoe Las Vegas) in Paradise, Nevada, killing 85 people,[1] most through smoke inhalation.

Openings in vertical shafts (elevators and stairwells) and seismic joints allowed toxic smoke to spread to the top floor.

On December 4, 1980, a fire broke out at the Stouffer's Inn of Westchester, a newly built hotel and conference center in Purchase, New York, killing 26 people.

[77] It spread rapidly because of a lack of sufficient sprinklers and the use of highly flammable carpeting and wall coverings; New York had no statewide fire code at the time.

A report by the National Fire Protection Association identified one reason for the deaths as inadequate escape routes: the stairways were located at the end of the corridor, so that as the hallways filled with smoke, people were unable to reach them and suffocated.

[87] Fire broke out in the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on New Year's Eve 1986, killing 98 people[1] and injuring 140.

Casino cook Valerie Moore was convicted of setting the fire and sentenced to 12 consecutive life prison terms without parole.