Killeen fire closes hotel, displaces guests

By Victor O’Brien in The Killeen Daily Herald
A one-room fire shut down a Killeen hotel Tuesday. The fire broke out near an air conditioner in a fifth-floor room of the Howard Johnson Hotel shortly after midnight Tuesday.

The hotel’s fire sprinklers extinguished the flames before Killeen firefighters arrived, Killeen fire investigator Chris Mahlstedt said. The sprinkler water overflowed and damaged approximately 10 rooms on several floors of the hotel, which is at Trimmier Road and the Central Texas Expressway

The water forced city inspectors to close the hotel. The hotel’s six guests were relocated to the Plaza Hotel, located at Central Texas Expressway and W.S. Young Drive.

The fire started near an air conditioning unit in a vacant room and was contained to curtains above the air conditioner. The cause is undetermined, Mahlstedt said.

The hotel could reopen as early as today, David Meza, Howard Johnson regional operations manager said.