A two-alarm blaze, which appears to have been set by an arsonist, sent 55 people scrambling to the street from a downtown hotel where fires are a frequent occurrence.

No one was injured in the fire at the New Windsor Hotel, 241 S. State, which started shortly after midnight in a storage closet on the hotel's second floor, said Salt Lake Fire Department Battalion Chief Gordon Nicholl.The fire "was suspicious in origin," he said.

Firefighters evacuated 47 people and rescued eight from the building's roof, Nicholl said. When the engines first rolled up to the hotel, many of the residents appeared ready to escape through streetside windows. "That's always a scare when you arrive, seeing people hanging out the windows," he said.

Hotel manager Dorothy DeShasier, who had been rousted out of bed by the fire, stood on the sidewalk with other hotel residents as firefighters quickly snuffed the blaze.

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When the hotel's smoke alarm sounded, not all the residents were aware of what was happening. "I thought it was my alarm to wake me up," one resident said.

Two hotel residents said they heard someone open and close the storage room door just before the fire alarm went off.

DeShasier said there were some paint cans and rugs in the closet. "I just cleaned that thing out this morning," she said, adding that she thought the fire had been deliberately set.

Nicholl and the residents said that fires at the New Windsor occur frequently. One resident said there have been 15 or 16 fires in the four years he's been living in the old hotel atop Salt Lake Blue on the east side of State Street.

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