By Rick Steelhammer
The Charleston Gazette
LOGAN, W.Va. — A fire that broke out Monday night in the 93-year-old Aracoma Hotel, in downtown Logan, and sent nearly 60 occupants scurrying for their lives is believed to have started by accident in a top-floor apartment, according to Logan Fire Chief Scott Beckett.
None of the hotel’s occupants were injured in the blaze, which began about 8 p.m. A firefighter suffered a possible broken elbow while battling the fast-moving fire.
“If the fire had to happen, we were blessed that it happened at the time of day it did - when people were still up and alert,” said Beckett. “If it had started at 3 a.m., we would still be filling body bags.
“With none of the occupants injured, no firefighters seriously injured and no other buildings damaged, the outcome is really kind of miraculous.”
The 97-room hotel consists of three floors of living space atop a ground-level retail space that housed a jewelry store, gift shop, beauty shop and fitness center. Most of the rooms on the top floor of the hotel were used as apartments for long-term guests, while the lower levels accommodated overnight visitors.
When firefighters arrived at the scene, the top floor of the structure was engulfed in fire and smoke.
“We had men in the building in a matter of minutes,” said Beckett. In the top floor, firefighters had to traverse a long hallway filled with black smoke so thick “you couldn’t see your hand two inches away from your face.”
Tony Stanley, a circulation district manager for Charleston Newspapers, and his wife rented an apartment on the top floor of the building while an apartment building the couple owns is being worked on. Stanley’s wife was out of the building attending a class when the fire broke out.
“The alarm in the hallway went off, and I called the front desk to ask if they were having a fire drill,” Stanley said. “They said, ‘No, it’s OK,’ but a few minutes later a friend looked out in the hallway and said the place was on fire.”
Stanley said that within seconds the hallway was full of smoke.
“I put a white T-shirt over my mouth and had to feel my way down the hallway to find the stairwell,” he said. “The T-shirt was black by the time I got to the lobby. You couldn’t see a thing, and it seemed like it took a lifetime to get out.
“It was pretty bad, but everybody did manage to get out, including one elderly lady who had lived there 19 years.”
“There was a five-foot airspace between the ceiling of the top floor and the roof,” said Beckett. When flames began moving into that airspace, “we began moving into a defensive operation.”
Firefighters helped several residents make their way down the stairs and out of the building, but it took several hours for them to know for certain that all guests were safe and accounted for.
The hotel’s owner, who lives in California, is expected to arrive in Logan this week to examine the structure with insurance personnel and a structural engineer.
“If you take the top floor off, the rest of the building doesn’t look so bad, although there is smoke and water damage,” Beckett said.
“I hope they can reopen it,” said Dwight Williamson, a Logan County magistrate, who watched as fire department personnel and state Fire Marshal’s investigators surveyed the fire scene early Tuesday afternoon.
“A lot of coal miners and construction workers live there, and there are five or six businesses that have been operating in the hotel,” he said.
“And a lot of important political decisions have been made here over the years,” Williamson added. “There’s a definite Kennedy connection here. JFK stayed here during the 1960 campaign, and I think Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy were both here, too.”
According to published reports, Ted Kennedy stayed at the Aracoma while working with an advance crew of campaign staff prior to brother John F. Kennedy’s arrival in West Virginia to fight for the Democratic nomination. JFK stayed at the hotel on April 24, 1960, after giving a well-received speech at the nearby Logan County Courthouse.
In September 1921, the hotel was used as the command center for the Logan County Coal operators during the Battle of Blair Mountain, when thousands of miners marched toward Logan and confronted an army of sheriff’s deputies and strikebreakers in an effort to unionize the Southern West Virginia coalfield.
Red Cross and Salvation Army personnel on Tuesday were helping residents of the hotel find temporary lodging.
Drilling work being done at a lot next to the hotel was halted until engineers can examine the hotel and make sure it can withstand the disturbance.
Copyright 2010 Charleston Newspapers