850 tourists evacuated from hotel

A fourth Majorcan hotel in as many weeks was evacuated yesterday morning and for the moment, the investigation focuses on a cigarette butt. A total of 834 British holidaymakers were evacuated from the Hotel Magalluf Park at 7.30 am after a fire was reported in a fourth-floor bedroom. Only one person needed medical treatment. The 25-year-old Briton was one of the guests in the room which caught fire and needed to be treated for smoke inhalation. The alarm was raised at 7.30 and five Calvia Local Police units rushed to the scene. Police checked that the occupants of the affected bedroom had been evacuated, but police feared that the fire was in danger of spreading out of control, called for the fire brigade and ordered that the hotel be evacuated. The Local Police and the Guardia Civil made sure that fire fighters and the emergency services were able to reach the scene as quickly as possible by mounting special traffic controls. The emergency services were at the hotel within minutes and the fire was under control within an hour. An 82-year-old woman on the third floor, overcome by smoke, needed to be rescued from her bedroom directly below the room where the fire started. Once the situation was under control, at around 8.30, the hotel guests were allowed to return to their rooms and hotel services returned to normal. In total just three people had to be treated for the effects of smoke. Last night police sources said that fire investigators suspect that the blaze was caused by a cigarette butt which had not been extinguished properly. The manager of the hotel yesterday praised the emergency services for their swift action and said that he was grateful damage was limited to a minimum. He also confirmed that guests in rooms damaged or affected by the fire had been transfered to other accommodation. The conclusions to the causes of the three other hotel fires in Majorca this summer have yet to be revealed.