Hot Springs Fire Chief Ed Davis says the Majestic Hotel fire on Feb. 27 was probably started by either "urban explorers" or homeless persons who were in the building on a continuous basis.
"Many times in Hot Springs we've had situations where homeless people have set fires not intending to burn the building down. They set fires to warm themselves, and something gets out of hand, and the next thing you know the building is on fire," similar to what happened at the Baxter building on Cottage Street earlier this week, Davis said.
Davis said the Majestic's property owner had no motivation for starting the fire, since there was no insurance on that portion of the complex, a U-shaped building the Hot Springs Fire Department commonly refers to as the "Yellow Brick" because of the color of the bricks used in its construction.
Davis also said he accepts full responsibility for there not being a fire scene investigation prior to the Majestic building being torn down on Feb. 28-29.
"It is my responsibility to make those decisions, and the buck does stop with me. I am the one to blame for there not being a fire investigation of this building. But the bottom line on it is, I have two fire marshals who are highly trained and I have a lot of affection for those guys, and ... I have to treat them with the same amount of protection and the same amount of respect I do my firefighters," he said.
"So, if I'm not going to put my firefighters into the building prior to the fire, or during the fire, I'm sure not going to let my fire marshals to go into the building after the fire.
"Does it mean that maybe we won't find out exactly how the fire started? Probably so. But if that's the case, that's fine. I still have all my people; no one is injured."
Davis was well familiar with the conditions at the Majestic Hotel complex prior to the fire. After an inspection of the buildings in 2012, he issued a report noting that the building the fire department had dubbed the "Yellow Brick" had sustained considerable structural damage due to numerous holes in the roof. In that report, written two years before the fire, Davis had noted that, due to the structural instability of the building, firefighters' lives would be in jeopardy if placed inside the building.
"We feel like that portion will fail quickly during fire conditions, therefore, we're not going to put people inside that part of the structure. It would be a defensive battle from outside of it," Davis wrote in 2012.
"The building was unsafe prior to that fire. I didn't allow my people to go in that building and do inspections; I didn't allow my people to go in the building for any reason ... the building was a threat to the community before the fire," Davis said in the interview.
Davis says he knew from the time he arrived on the scene of the fire that the building could not be saved.
The building was basically a "five-story vertical lumber yard," he said.
"The Majestic is a brick-clad building ... it's got masonry exterior walls and all wood on the inside. Basically what you have is a five-story vertical lumber yard that has a brick shell on the outside of it," Davis said.
When he saw that the fire was in the confined spaces between the fourth and fifth floors, "I knew at that point in time we were going to be in for a long fight."
The roof area had some "enormous holes" in it. "When it rained outside, it rained inside," Davis said.
"We knew that we could not safely put people on the roof of that building to conduct operations. It was just too spongy, even prior to the fire. When I saw where it was in the building, and how it was burning, I knew there was not much we were going to be able to do, just contain it to the building of origin," he said.
Davis and his wife were shopping at Wal-Mart the evening of Feb. 27 when he got a phone call from Fire Marshal Tom Braughton that the Majestic was on fire. Davis had turned down his radio while having a conversation with a friend and had neglected to turn the volume back up.
"It was busy. There was a lot of traffic; the first arriving engine company was setting up on the backside. The engine companies on the front were laying lines to set the aerial devices up," he said.
The farther he drove down Central Avenue, "the more it became evident that we had an advanced fire going on at the Majestic."
By the time Davis arrived, fire was showing in the fifth floor of the front of the building, in the area of the stairwell that connects the fifth with the fourth floor. "The fifth was nothing more than a series of separate penthouse-like suites that were on the top of the building."
Davis said he knew from the time he first heard the alarm that it was a serious fire.
"You begin to feel the tension in the firefighters' voices whenever you hear the radio traffic. Not that they are not professional, and not that they are not calm -- they are. But at the same time, there is a certain amount of tension," Davis said.
The Majestic complex was filled with a lot of smaller buildings, especially back behind the yellow brick building. There was a bath house, a boiler room, a laundry, and "all kinds of different shops." At one point, there had been a paint shop in the complex, but it had collapsed and the city had ordered it removed prior to the fire.
"You only saw about half of the building from the street. You had wings that were going down either side of it," Davis said.
The fire pre-plan called for using large-caliber water streams. In other words, the aerial devices were set up so that, if the exterior walls collapsed, the debris would not fall on the firefighters on the aerial devices. The department also set up a safety zone around the building.
Once everything was set up, the department began to call in mutual aid companies. Lake Hamilton Fire Department and 70 West Fire Department each brought in an engine company and a truck company.
The firefight was divided up into six-hour operational periods, rotating the staffs in and out.
"It's important to allow people to have some downtime. Allow them to get a little sleep, to get a good meal, to get away from the scene," Davis said.
The same applied to the mutual aid companies. Eight fire departments operated at the scene, including the Hot Springs Fire Department.
"We had really good help from Lake Hamilton and 70 West both. They were of great assistance to us. We also had great assistance and manpower from Malvern, and Benton, Hot Springs Village, Morning Star, Fountain Lake -- the list just goes on and on.
"We had wonderful support also from The Salvation Army and the Red Cross, and Hot Springs Street Department," which kept its diesel fuel truck at the scene and refueled the fire trucks "countless times."
"Many of those engines ran for 48 hours," he said.
Restaurants including Deluca's Pizzeria Napoletana and Belle Arti supplied meals, and McDonald's supplied breakfast one morning, Davis said. The public brought donuts from different shops, and he said it was "just amazing" the amount of bottled water that was donated by banks and car dealerships.
"We just had great, great help from the community. We had wonderful support from the Hot Springs Police Department, which performed crowd and traffic control."
Local on 03/07/2014