Fire erupts at north Phoenix hotel

A massive fire explodes inside of a Phoenix hotel right off of the I-17 freeway and you can see those flames burning behind us. Yeah, it was pretty wild to see earlier this morning. We were able to see it from our ADOT camera. Danielle Miller just getting on scene. Danielle, what can you tell us? Yeah, hey guys, good morning. So this is just off the I-17, those northbound lanes on Greenway and we were coming in from the downtown Phoenix area and the entire area you could see just filled with smoke in the air and that appears to have since cleared out from the sky but fire crews are still continuing to work on this fire here this was called out as a second alarm fire a very large response as you can imagine this is the Travelodge Hotel so many people could possibly be affected by this very scary situation so that's why it was kicked out as that a second alarm fire captain Mike Johnson with us with the Phoenix Fire Department just before about six o'clock this morning that's when you guys got the call yeah initial calls came out just before six o'clock this morning. The initial crews that arrived on scene, that fire was already through the roof and was in the attic space. So as you can see some of that video that was filmed earlier, the entire roof of this structure was on fire and fire was shooting 10, 20, 30 feet into the air with smoke going all across the valley. So our crews did a great job by getting all around this building, putting our ladder pipes up, hitting it, we call surround and drown, using big water to put as much water on that fire as possible to contain it and our main goal was protecting the occupied structures that were just north of this building. Okay so was this building in particular occupied at the time? This building was vacant. It was reported to be vacant. The initial reports is that it was vacant so we just wanted to get that fire put out, protect those exposures and get those other buildings evacuated. And if you could kind of just walk us through what it looks like. So the buildings are kind of detached from one another. So this building in particular was vacant but the one as you said just to the north of it could possibly have some people in there. Yeah I believe there are three separate buildings that you know they're far enough away that where the fire because of the way our crews positioned themselves weren't it wasn't able to impact those other buildings but obviously it was a threat and so we wanted to get those buildings evacuated in case that fire did jump to any other buildings but we also put crews in place to protect those exposures. And we do understand that it's vacant, but were there any people inside at the time? This time there hasn't been any reported injuries to civilians or firefighters. Now that the bulk of that fire is out and we're able to safely kind of go room to room just to confirm that there's nobody inside. But again, initial reports were that this building was vacant. And Captain, let's talk about the response. I saw obviously Phoenix Fire out here, a few Glendale trucks. I mean, just a massive response out here this morning. Yeah, you know, this is pretty close to Glendale, and we have that automatic aid response here in the valley where we just pulled the closest fire trucks as far as the resources that are needed. And this quickly got bounced, so first alarm because of the size of the building and the fire, and then a second alarm to help protect those exposures. That's roughly right around 100 firefighters that were out here working hard early this morning. Wow. And I see right now there's still two ladder trucks. What's going to happen from here on out? Yeah, so they have called fire control, which means the most part of the bulk of this fire has been put out and contained. So they're just going to continue to hit the hot spots, check and make sure that there aren't any little embers or anything that could reignite a little bit later. And then they'll be working with the hotel staff and the occupants that were evacuated to see if there's any needs that they have. And fire crews, you guys are all okay? No injuries to report? Yeah, no injuries reported at this time, so everybody remains safe. Amazing Captain, thank you so much we appreciate it and i do want to remind you folks if you guys are heading this way the I-17 those northbound lanes are getting pretty backed up because of this so if you are exiting Greenway there are some closures in both directions because crews are still continuing to to fight this as well as i mean there is a lot of response here on scene too so just to keep that in mind if this is part of your morning commute we're going to stay here on scene any type of updates we get i will pass those along as we get them for now we'll send it back to you guys.