How to Escape a Hotel Fire

Nov. 25, 2002 -- On average, a fire breaks out somewhere in the United States every 18 seconds.

When people are caught in a hotel fire, it can be even more disorienting than at home, because they are in unfamiliar surroundings, often asleep. In 1980, a fire at the 26-story MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas killed 85 people. A few months later, a fire at the Las Vegas Hilton killed eight more. A 1993 fire at Chicago's residential Paxton Hotel killed 20 people.

To demonstrate the dangers, Primetime staged two demonstrations with the help of the Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue Department in southern Florida. In the first, the department staged a controlled "live burn" at an abandoned hotel to show how quickly a fire can turn deadly. In the second, with the help of the Sheraton Yankee Trader hotel, a high-rise on the city's beachfront, the department used theatrical smoke to simulate two fires, each time testing the reactions of 16 volunteer guests. The volunteers were told that they would be participating in a show about survival, but they did not know there would be a simulated fire.

In the live fire at the abandoned hotel, a trashcan fire caused by a discarded cigarette took just seconds to engulf the bed, then the desk and soon the ceiling. Within 30 seconds, thick black smoke had filled the room and started seeping into the hallway. A minute later, the smoke had covered the ceiling of the hallway and begun to descend, extinguishing the remaining light and oxygen. By that point, the heat inside the room was reaching temperatures as high as 950 degrees, shattering mirrors and the TV screen. The oxygen level, at a normal 21 percent of the air before the fire, had decreased to 12 percent, low enough to kill.

With the difference between life and death often a matter of seconds, not minutes, fire safety officers suggest the following tips:

Check the hallway when you arrive. As soon as you arrive in your room, check the floor plan on the back of the door that shows the location of the fire exits. Go out into the hallway and count the doors to the closest exits so you will be able to find them in the dark and smoke of a fire. In the experiment at the Sheraton Yankee Trader, none of the 16 guests inspected the hallway when they arrived.