The Course of Events of the Fire
At about 0430 in the morning the fire started on the lower
ground floor, next to a stairway from the lobby to the restaurant
Veteranen. When the fire was discovered and the Fire Service
notified at 0440, the fire had already got a proper hold on the
stairway wall and insulation. The insulation behind the panelling
was made of expanded polystyrene. Polystyrene is a thermoplastic
substance, normally existing in solid state at room temperature,
but melting if heated. The wall decoration had been made of a
similar material. The fire thus had excellent conditions for
spreading throughout the lobby area and on to the 1st floor via the
internal staircase. Flashover probably occurred in the lobby area
within 10 minutes of open flame occurrence. The large open area
provided the fire with an ample supply of air.
After a time, the fire spread to the offices on the 2nd floor
along a drainage pipe for roof water, where the pipe had been
inadequately packed.
The fire did not spread beyond the dividing floor construction
to the 3rd storey. However - the smoke did.
Smoke
Spreading
The corridors on the 3rd to 11th floor of
the high-rise building, the guestroom section, were filled with
smoke early on. This due to inadequately fitting doors both towards
the lift shafts and the stairwells. During the first phase of the
fire the lift shafts and stairwells nearest Havnegaten conducted a
lot of smoke to the accommodation floors. The smoke spread from the
corridors by way of the doors into the guestrooms even though all
doors were shut during the fire. All the smoke which spread did so
between the actual door and the frame. During the fire the doors on
the ground and 1st floors, as well as the stairwell nearest
Havnegaten, burned down completely. This caused the smoke to spread
at an increased rate.
The Rescue
The rescue operation at the Hotel Caledonien took considerable
time. Approximately 4 hours after the fire started it was
ascertained that all survivors were out of the building.
When the fire brigade arrived the fire was sufficiently
widespread to require a lengthy and massive effort to be
extinguished. The resources available to the Fire Service during
the first phase were put to use partly in order to rescue the
guests and partly to extinguish the fire. After a short time the
fire endangered all of the 86 guests. The number of people who had
to be rescued through the windows was much larger than that the
rescue services were capable of handling at such short notice.
As a result of the Fire Service's manager issuing a full
catastrophe alert early on, there was a steady increase in
availability in rescue services and personnel during the fire. The
Norwegian Armed Forces held a large military exercise, Blue Fox, in
the Kristiansand area. The exercise was put on hold and all
available personnel were sent to Hotel Caledonien to assist in the
rescue. At 0630 a Sea King helicopter send from No. 330 Squadron at
Stavanger, Sola hovered above Caledonien, lowering smoke divers to
the hotels roof. Later the Sea King crew would rescue five hotel
guests, lifting them out of the windows at the higher floors. The
civil defense arrived at about 0700. During the first phase the
only ladders available were the fire brigade’s own and they
could not reach higher than to the 5th floor. At 0710 the
transportation firm Nygaard arrived with several mobile cranes that
would be used at the higher levels.
The toughest job of all the rescuers was perhaps the one done by
the smoke divers. They were from Kristiansand Fire Brigade,
Falconbridge, Fiskaa, Mekken, Hunsfos, Sjøaspirantskolen and the
Fire and Rescue Services at Kristiansand airport, among others.
Normally the work as a smoke diver is so hard that they should
not work longer than an hour without a break, and not use more than
three bottles of compressed air. During the rescue operation at
Hotel Caledonien some of the smoke divers worked for up to 3,5
hours without a break, using 7 bottles of air. The impressive
effort of the smoke divers in the rescue work was undoubtedly of
decisive importance in the rescuing of many of the hotel guests.
The smoke divers went into each room, calmed the guests down and
brought them to safety by means of ladders and cranes.
The End
The cause of the fire was probably as a result of a fault in an
electric cable in a lamp in the stairway. 14 hotel guests died in
the fire. None of the guests who had broken the windows were found
dead in their rooms. All the surviving guests were rescued through
the windows.
No guests escaped the hotel via the ordinary escape routes like the
hallways or stairs.
Youtube link to the news coverage of the
fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOTi-hbvlyg
"Jeg ser det som ufattelig at 14 av våre gjester er omkommet.
Det går sterkt innpå meg.
Selve brannen opplevde jeg som en form for dramatisk action med
alle de elementer som brukes i katastrofepregede filmer. Folk som
fires ned, våre gjester som står i vinduene og skriker om hjelp.
Politi, ambulanser, brannfolk og katastrofeberedskapen som jeg
hadde anledning til å oppleve på nært hold"
Alfred
Hauge
Direktør
Hotel Caledonien, 1986
