There was an incident of fire today morning due to shock circuit in Ahmedabad’s most happening five-star hotel Courtyard Marriott.

On a call from the hotel, eight fire tenders of Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Service immediately rushed and controlled fire.

According to Chief Fire Officer of Ahmedabad Shri M.F.Dastoor, the hotel’s in-house fire safety system was found non-functional and poorly maintained. “While gravitationally water flow was available, the water lifting system in opposite direction was not working. If sprinkler system was working, fire could be controlled within minutes and could be limited to a place. We controlled fire in about half an hour time employing gravity only.” In view of this and other observations, Dastoor said he had proposed termination of Fire ‘No Objection Certificate'(NOC) that was earlier given to the hotel. Dastoor said, the hotel will have to immediately revamp its fire safety system and will have to comply with all norms and regulations related to fire safety to receive new No objection certificate. “Till that time, I propose Health department for closure of the hotel,” he added.

When fire broke out, there were many foreign guests living inside. They later quickly left the hotel and were seen sitting outside in campus. Fortunately nobody was hurt and there was no larger loss to property due to fire. It should be mentioned here that recently the cricket teams of India, Australia, New zealand and Zimbabwe had stayed in this hotel while they were in Ahmedabad to play ICC cricket world cup 2011 matches.

The hotel authority was unavailable for comment, and avoided interaction with media, however issued a statement through press release in the evening which is presented below:

“Courtyard by Marriott, Ahmedabad confirms an incident of smoke at the Sauna in the health club which is situated in the second level of the property occurred at 7:20am today.”

“Following this, the in house guests of the property were evacuated; security in charge and fire officials worked proficiently and brought the matter under control. There were no injuries and no other areas of the hotel were affected. However, the operations at the hotel commenced within a couple of hours. We are investigating the cause of the mishap.”

“The Marriott Group is committed towards the safety and security of guests and associates, and considers this their foremost priority.”