VIDEOS/PHOTOS: Glennallen residents woke up Wednesday morning to see flames engulfing the Caribou Hotel. Alaska State Troopers state that everyone was safely evacuated and there are no reported injuries. Troopers received a report at 8:12 a.m. of smoke at the Caribou Hotel. The troopers’ dispatch report states the fire quickly spread through the hotel and became fully engulfed in flames.
The fire also damaged at least five vehicles. A state deputy fire marshal will be investigating the origin and cause of the fire. Nicholas Beshaw is a nearby resident who witnessed the rapid spread of the blaze firsthand. “At 8:30, you couldn’t tell that there was anything wrong,” Beshaw said. “At 8:40, I mean, like a mushroom cloud [was] just billowing out from there.”
Beshaw explained that the fire appears to have reached the boiler room of the hotel, which he says contained a “lot of accelerants” like cleaning supplies. From there, the inferno quickly engulfed the hotel, sending up a massive column of smoke into the frigid air, which didn’t do much to stop anything it consumed from turning into a melted and charred scene.
KTUU-TV NBC 2 Anchorage
