Sparks from a welder’s torch set fire to part of the top floor of the historic Allerton Hotel early Thursday afternoon, sending about 100 firefighters to the scene and disrupting traffic along North Michigan Avenue for more than an hour.
“We were very fortunate it didn’t get farther than where it got,” Chicago Fire Commissioner Edward Altman said. “No one was injured that I’m aware of.”
At least one guest at the hotel, 701 N. Michigan Ave., wondered why an audible alarm never sounded.
Lil Fullan, a tourist from Ireland, said she was in a 14th-floor room when she smelled smoke, but she did not hear alarms or receive a phone call from the front desk.
“I looked out my window and saw the lights from the trucks,” Fullan said.
Hotel manager Iraj Ali said the hotel’s alarm system worked the way it was designed. He said employees at the front desk were alerted by a silent alarm, and they immediately began phoning each of the 57 occupied rooms in the 378-room hotel.
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He said none of the calls was answered.
Fire officials said the hotel followed standard procedure.
“We didn’t have a dangerous condition. If we did, we would have started evacuating floor by floor,” Altman said.
The flames were contained to a storage area, said Altman, and began when welders who were rerouting a chimney ignited residue in the area.
One of the welders, Bob Olivetree, 26, of Darien said he and two co-workers tried to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher.
“It’s 70 years’ worth of dust up there,” he said.
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MORE ON THE INTERNET: For more on the history of the Allerton Hotel, visit chicago.tribune.com/go/allerton