GUESTS and staff of the Pegasus Hotel, Georgetown, were late Sunday night forced to evacuate the hotel as a fire in the hotel’s kitchen caused the premises to be engulfed in smoke.
Reports from guests at the hotel indicate that there were no fire safety measures in place. In particular, guests recounted to Guyana Chronicle that there was no sounding of the fire alarm and fire exits were all locked.
When Guyana Chronicle arrived at the hotel, guests and staff were seen in the lobby area, some wearing masks as firefighters attempted to quell the situation in the kitchen. Among those affected by the fire were children and the elderly.
“I was on the second floor trying to get out. When I ran down, there was a big padlock at the exit. Then I ran up to get my children. When I tried to go to the fourth floor, there was a padlock on the door and chain… I had to come through the smoke. It is because of Jesus that we are alive,” a guest recounted to the media.
He believes that action should be taken against hotels that are non-compliant with fire safety regulations.
“Safety is very, very important,” he stated as he stood by his wife and children. The overseas guest said he was banging on doors trying to get some persons out of their rooms.
“I was trying to get people out, there is fire, come out, and come out…now we had to use the elevator. The elevator is a poor thing when you have a fire,”

Fire Prevention Officer Andrew Holder told reporters that the fire resulted from a deep fry, “either accidentally or willfully left on” which became so overheated that it ignited the insulation for the heat extractor which created a smoke logged environment.
“We managed to quickly put out that fire and initiated some form of ventilation. The occupants’ anxiety about relatives being left in rooms up there is understandable. We tried our best to get them out of the rooms,” said Holder who noted that the fire was contained to the kitchen area.
Two floors above the ground floor area were engulfed in smoke, he disclosed while noting that the fire at the hotel comes immediately after the Guyana Fire Service conducted a training session for hotels. That forum was poorly attended.
“Some of the same stuff we dealt with at that training occurred here tonight. Unmaintained deep fry…how to respond, what to do to form initial response,” said Holder who expects that the next fire safety training for the hospitality sector will be will attended.
He confirmed the reports by guests that the exit doors were all padlocked. “I observed that… the thing is the fire prevention department does yearly inspections of these departments, we do not know what obtains or what obtains after inspections.”
This would prompt another impromptu inspection today, Holder announced. “It should not be locked; some of them are chained and padlocked.”
Meanwhile, at the time the fire occurred, a wedding reception was ongoing in the Savannah Suite. The bride and her relatives were seen standing in the driveway as the fire service tried to control the fire.
Another guest told reporters that he has moved across to the Marriott Hotel.
“We grabbed our valuables and the smoke was so thick, I ran back upstairs calling for my grandchildren. No alarm, nobody even call and say something was wrong,” said Mrs. Fredericks who has returned to Guyana from the United States for a convention.
Attempts were made by Guyana Chronicle to speak with the manager who refused to comment.