State Fire Marshal’s Office Updates of North Conway Hotel Fire

North Conway – State Fire Marshal Sean P. Toomey announces that the fire investigation at the Red Jacket Mountain View Resort on White Mountain Highway in North Conway remains active and ongoing.

The scene examination portion of the fire investigation was completed late Sunday afternoon. Investigators are continuing to follow-up on interviews with guests and witnesses. Investigative work is projected to continue over the coming weeks, including gathering information specific to the timeline and sequence of operations of the fire alarm system components.

The Office of the State Fire Marshal has received many inquiries on the fire protection systems in the hotel. Investigators have been able to verify that the guest rooms were equipped with local, hardwired smoke alarms with battery back-up, in addition to a fire alarm system heat detector. The smoke alarms were designed to sound only in the individual guest rooms, once activated. The heat detector would set off the building fire alarm system, once activated.

The main hallways of the hotel were equipped with fire alarm system smoke detectors and alarm notification devices (horn/strobes). The south wing of the hotel lacked a complete automatic sprinkler system. The New Hampshire State Fire Code, defined in RSA 153, includes the Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2015 edition. Under the current statute, existing hotel occupancies that are not considered a high-rise are not required to have an automatic sprinkler system. Automatic sprinkler systems in new hotels became a fire code requirement in 1991 for buildings that are not high-rises.

The Office of the State Fire Marshal would advocate for owners to consider automatic sprinkler systems as part of capital projects.

No further details are available at this time. Anyone with information regarding the fire is asked to contact the Office of the State Fire Marshal at (603) 223-4289.