The Snowbound Motel Fire

An unfortunate set of circumstances led to the complete destruction of a commercial building in a spectacular mid-winter blizzard conflagration. The fire was classified as being of un-known origin and the problem was eventually presented to our firm in mid spring for comment.

The fire had, quite literally, burnt to the ground a motel-restaurant complex beside a busy highway. When we examined the site in the spring, we found the remains of the restaurant were submerged in a water filled basement. The baseboard heaters and plumbing fixtures sitting on a long rectangular concrete pad, attached to one end of the restaurant foundation, outlined where the motel units and service areas had stood.

The fire damaged baseboard heaters in the rooms were all normal except for two. The two were back to back in two adjacent rooms at the center of the rear row of the motel units, immediately next to the utility room containing the main circuit breaker panel and electrical distribution boxes. The contacts of the power controls in one of the two baseboard heaters were fused solidly together. The electrical leads and contacts were all severely pitted and noticeably thinned as though the system had been submerged in water while carrying power for a long period of time. The other baseboard heater had no mechanical-electrical contacts left. Chemical analysis identified two "blobs" of molten metal in the control compartment of the heater as the power control switch contacts. The remains of one of the power distribution panels found in the area of the utility room also showed the same evidence of very heavy pitting and metal thinning, from what looked like an electrolytic action.

The adjuster?s office provided us with reports from the insurance company, statements from owners, employees, and contractors together with reports from the local police, provincial police and responding fire company for our review.

The sequence of events, which led to the fire, were revealed in the various reports examined. Several days prior to the following sequence of events a series of heavy snow falls and storms had piled snow up to the building eves on the off highway side of the motel complex. The snow was left against the building since the rooms on this side of the motel complex had been closed for the off-season several months earlier. A utility company construction crew severed a water line while excavating near the restaurant/motel complex. A city engineering representative was called and on arrival was unable to find the shut off point for the water source and returned to the office for drawings. The excavation filled and overflowed with the water eventually flooding the basement of the restaurant motel complex. Eventually the water was shut off and the excavation and basement pumped out. The water pipe was repaired and the repair crew was advised to restore the pressure slowly to avoid damaging the down stream pipes. Motel employees reported numerous very loud banging noises from the pipes in the restaurant as water pressure was restored.

A day or so later employees noted that water was condensing on doors, windows, ventilating system grilles and the humidity in the restaurant was very high. The previous basement flood was cited as the cause and no more thought was given to the problem. Several days after the water line repairs employees noted a burnt odor in the air at the end of the restaurant adjacent to the motel unit complex, in addition to the persistent high humidity. Examination of the accessible motel unit rooms along the front or highway-facing portion of complex revealed nothing except an elevated humidity in the rooms near the center of the strip.

Towards the weekend weather forecasts called for very heavy snowfalls and blizzard conditions. The humidity and burning odor were still increasing on the Friday morning as the snow began. Towards noon officials closed the highway and all the plows were taken off the roads because of poor visibility in the blowing snow. The restaurant filled with stranded travelers, employees and several police officers and it became obvious that something was burning, a haze of smoke hung in the air and the odor of burning materials was strong. As darkness approached the accessible motel room rear walls were found to be warm to the touch and as darkness settled the glow from the fire in the rear row of the motel complex was visible on the blowing snow. Calls to the fire service were placed, but the engines were snow bound. The occupants were forced from the building and crowded into parked vehicles as the fire spread to and consumed the entire structure in a spectacular wind driven mini firestorm.

The surface condition of the current carrying components in the power control compartments of the two suspect base board heater units indicated that while carrying current they were submerged in water for a sustained period of time. The fused condition of the contacts in one heater required a fire temperature of over 1080 degrees centigrade to melt the metal. All of the connecting wiring in the walls and immediately adjacent to the heater showed no evidence of this degree of heating. The electrical energy, which melted these metal contacts, probably started the fire in the wooden structure holding the heater in place. The switched on heater, driving off the water and drying out the surroundings before ignition, probably generated the high humidity in the complex.

How the heater contacts came to be fused, why the circuit breakers did not trip, where the water that flooded the rooms and submerged the heaters came from and who was ultimately responsible are to this day still un-resolved questions.