Bangkok: Fire At Grand Tower Inn Leaves 1 Dead, Several Foreigners Injured

[chooka]

A female guest who had booked that room left her key card at the counter before going out at around 11pm on Saturday.

I thought the very purpose of having key cards is that guests don't have to leave them at the front desk when going out.

No ... the purpose is that cards can easily be reset for security purposes. It's virtually instant and cost free, and no need to have a locksmith install a new lock and key.

"It was locked from the inside."

So she locked the door, climbed out the window.....climbed down the building....and then went into the lobby and handed in her key card?????

was she wearing her spiderman suit. sorry just kidding

[Roachiebkk]

Whilst working for an apparently reputable tourism company in Bangkok I went to inspect the new Buddy Group hotel in Pak Ret. Brand spanking new hotel. We were invited to stay in the hotel so as to enjoy the evening. One of the guy's who worked with me decided to go back up to his room and repeatedly pressed the (what he thought) was the elevator call button, in the dimly lit area he then realised he was pressing the Fire Alarm button located ridiculously close to the elevator. No fire alarm sounded and no alarm was raised with their security internally. I pointed this out to the hotel GM and all I got was the typical 'deer in the headlights' gaze. Obviously the fire alarm system wasn't live, the elevator area poorly lit and fire alarm button badly located.

[diddums]

Had they learned anyrhing from Ambassador hotel ??

Fire starting at several points at the same time !

Look like the hotel was not making profir enough !

From the article it seems to have started in one place and then spread to other places. Nowhere does it say it started at several points. Sounds like the fire spread up the building from the first floor storage cupboard, and then ignited the bedsheet trolleys that were probably stored at the same end of the building.

One day someone like you will get locked up for making such unfounded comments.

I see your point but this quote from the article suggests that the trolleys were alight but not their surroundings.

"Hotel staff reported that the first fire alarm went off on the seventh floor and responded immediately. They saw a cart stacked with bed sheets on fire. But soon they came across more bed-sheet trolleys on fire on the fifth and sixth floors."

If the fire apparently started in a store cupboard on the first floor then why is it that the first fire alarm to go off was on the seventh floor? It sounds suspiciously like arson to me.

makes you wonder why they didn't extinguish the linen on the trolleys.....might have saved a whole lot of damage

Perhaps Somchai was pushing the trolley from floor to floor trying to get to the pool ??

[billp]

This is one of three Grand Tower Inns. The other two are at Thonglor and Ari. This one's near Sathorn Bridge on the Thonburi side. All cheap hotels where you can get a room for 800 baht and stay for a month for 11,000. Last July, a Tripadvisor reviewer came up with what might very well be behind today's fire: "This hotel is right in between the tallest sky-scrapers in Bangkok. It's obviously doomed to be demolished to make space for another sky-scraper. It's ran-down [sic] and the entrance smelled bad."

[bbradsby]

All over Asia, high-rise fires often spread quickly up through unsealed vertical shafts or slab penetrations for pipes/ducts/conduit, as well as via open stairwells that - even by locally-adopted building codes - are required to be sealed off.

Caveat emptor, Western apartment/hotel guests & expat office workers!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

How many more news media reports are we going to read about high-rise / condo / hotel files in Thailand where the reporters conveniently manage to avoid mentioning whether or not the building had a working fire sprinklers system.

From the absence of any mention in the news reports and the description of the fire itself, my guess would be yet another building that DID NOT have sprinklers.

Remember after the last such similar fires (one on Asoke and the other around Sukhumvit 26), the BMA was talking about a citywide task force to speed up and mandate fire sprinkler systems. I don't think I've ever heard any further mention of that supposed initiative since then.

Like so many other things around here, the officials talk after the problem arises, and then that's all they ever do... talk talk talk... But nothing gets done.

[Buchholz]

The Grand Tower Inn has been declared completely off-limits by the city after a raging inferno ripped through most floors yesterday, leaving one hotel worker dead and 11 people, including several foreigners, hospitalised with smoke inhalation.

Similar to the case of the Red Shirt Bomber Samai Wongsuwan, who blew himself up in the bomb explosion of his apartment building in Nonthaburi

http://www.thaivisa....ost__p__5973516

the late news on this topic is that the deceased hotel worker was an apparent arsonist in this case and set the fire due to "personal conflicts."

Fortunately, in this situation, three innocent people weren't also killed along with him like in the Red Shirt Bomber case.

Best regards for a speedy recovery for those innocents in this case that were injured.

Dead man in Bangkok hotel fire apparent arsonist

http://www.mcot.net/...1e#.UQZtN5hsiSp

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Edited January 28, 2013 by Buchholz

[Maestro]

...the first fire alarm went off on the seventh floor and responded immediately...

I don't see any mention of the time when the fire started. Was driven past it about 17:30 on Sunday evening and again about 19:00 and saw no smoke.

[ginjag]

Just off subject noticing that 20 rooms were ocupied at the time, how many rooms has the hotel, and in these booming tourism figures, you would think the occupancy per cent would be very high. Good job that so few people in the place. Sounds a bit strange that different fires were in linen trollies. friction on the bed sheets possible cause...... this comment is a joke because of the way, and in many cases the sorry state of HOW and WHY.

[davejones]

Not sure he should be locked up for reading the article.....

Hotel staff reported that the first fire alarm went off on the seventh floor and responded immediately. They saw a cart stacked with bed sheets on fire. But soon they came across more bed-sheet trolleys on fire on the fifth and sixth floors.

Wait, can fire go down??

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Edited January 28, 2013 by davejones

[Locationthailand]

Had they learned anyrhing from Ambassador hotel ??

Fire starting at several points at the same time !

Look like the hotel was not making profir enough !

From the article it seems to have started in one place and then spread to other places. Nowhere does it say it started at several points. Sounds like the fire spread up the building from the first floor storage cupboard, and then ignited the bedsheet trolleys that were probably stored at the same end of the building.

One day someone like you will get locked up for making such unfounded comments.

Aah - NO? Hotel staff reported that the first fire alarm went off on the seventh floor and responded immediately. They saw a cart stacked with bed sheets on fire. But soon they came across more bed-sheet trolleys on fire on the fifth and sixth floors. Unless there is such a thing as spontaneous combustion there's a good chance the arsonist lit them all in quick succession. And it would unlikely the fire had the intelligence to jump from trolley of sheets to other trolleys with sheets. Seems the uninformed may not be so uninformed - as to getting locked up... !

Edited January 28, 2013 by Locationthailand

[webfact]

UPDATE:

Suicide cited in hotel fire

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- A 45-year-old hotel worker who died in a fire at the Grand Tower Inn on Rama VI Road on Saturday night left a suicide note and is a prime suspect in what's being treated as an arson case, Bangkok police chief Pol Maj Gen Khamronwit Thoopkrajang said yesterday.

The fire, which ripped through the eight-storey hotel, killed Pongsakorn Boon-aram and caused 11 others, including several foreigners, to be hospitalised with smoke inhalation.

After a meeting with investigators, Khamronwit said witnesses saw Pongsakorn going to eight spots where fires started, while a lighter was found near his body. Pongsakorn's suicide note stated that he was "attached" to the hotel and "was ready to go down with it".

-- The Nation 2013-01-29

[needforspeed]

Laundry fire: If laundry been stacked on each other and no cooling down period installed on dryers they can causes fire after a period of time.

Not sure if they have in-house laundry, and off course we don’t know the details.

Many small incidents happen with laundry.

[johnbits]

This hits close to home for me. I have always stayed in that hotel, and I was there in Nov - Dec 2112 for ~45 days, then to Cambodia for 12 days and back to the grand tower Jan 14th 2013. I first stayed there in 2009.

They were installing new hardwood floors in many of the rooms, you could smell the glue, at first I thought that might have been the cause of the fire.

I knew Tee the man who died in the fire and is suspected of being the arsonist, and saw him every time I was there. From what I read, it seems they have a pretty solid case that he did it. Maybe he picked a time when there weren't many guests. The hotel is never full, it's not in the best of locations, but it's a short walk to the BTS skytrain or the river ferrry/boats. But they often have Thai business conventions there, obviously nothing fancy, but quite a few more guests.

[Buchholz]

Albeit it's a personal choice, burning to death is such an extremely painful and horrific option to choose for suicide.

But to put others at such great risk for serious harm, and even death, for what is a personal choice, is unconscionable.

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