Billowing smoke in a downtown Salt Lake hotel forced the evacuation of all 12 of its floors Monday morning, but firefighters said no injuries resulted.
Fire crews were leaving the Tri-Arc Hotel and about 50 guests were returning to their rooms by 8:45 a.m. MST, authorities said.Smoke began pouring from electrical appliances on the sixth, seventh and ninth floors at 7:40 a.m., shortly after the Tri-Arc began switching power from Utah Power & Light Co. to its own source, said Gordon Nicholl, a battalion chief with the Salt Lake City Fire Department.
Although there never was a fire, "anytime we get smoke in a hotel, we're concerned," Nicholl said.
David Kirby, an Amtrak employee from Seattle, was on the fifth floor when a fire alarm sounded.
"We'd just gotten in at 6 a.m. I heard an alarm but didn't pay any attention to it," he said. "Alarms are always going off in hotels.
"But when I heard the trucks, that's when I got dressed," said Kirby, who stays at the Tri-Arc as part of his weekly Monday layover.
Nicholl said a man was trapped in an elevator near the seventh floor when power failed at the Tri-Arc but was freed within an hour.