Emergency vehicles responded to several fire alarms at the Oread Hotel, 1200 Oread Ave., around midnight Monday morning.
Hotel guests were briefly evacuated from the building before they were allowed back into the hotel lobby where they waited for the smoke to clear and the fire alarms to stop sounding. Among those evacuated were players and staff for the Oklahoma men’s basketball team, which is in town for a game against Kansas tonight at 8 p.m. in Allen Fieldhouse.
Jozsef Szendrei, Oklahoma's strength and conditioning coach, waited in the hotel lobby and watched over a canvas bag full of players' cell phones that had been turned in to him earlier in the night. Oklahoma players waited in the Bird Dog Bar on the main floor.
While they waited, firefighters entered the building to investigate a possible fire that one employee said began in the laundry room. Emergency personnel speculated the fire was caused by the exhaust or ventilation system, but were unable to confirm the cause at the time.
Jimmy John's workers, who occupy the same building as the Oread Hotel, were also told to leave their shop briefly as emergency personnel investigated the situation.
Chase Dahnke, a Jimmy John's worker, said the store was only out of commission for about five minutes before they were able to go back to making sandwiches. The store's delivery service was halted for the evening because their drivers could not get around the surrounding fire trucks.
Preliminary damages resulting from the fire are estimated at $5,000, according to a report released Monday by the Lawrence Douglas County Fire and Medical.
According to the report, the fire was caused by a "spontaneous combustion from linens that had absorbed cooking oil and were placed in a confined laundry basket."
