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“Exotic” Resort Burns In San Pedro; Firefighters Say Thatch Roof Was Hazard
posted (February 25, 2015)

Early this morning, the Exotic Caye Resort, located on Coconut Drive in San Pedro Town, was the scene of a major fire which destroyed 3 buildings that was part of the compound. The owners of Exotic, which has reportedly been doing business for the last 20 years, must now make repairs and try to recover from over half a million dollars in damages.

The fire started at around 2:30 this morning, and it is believed to have started from inside a laundry room. That fire quickly spread to 3 nearby structures, and the fire officials say that a huge contributing factor to the quick spread of the blaze were the thatched roofs on the buildings.

These 3 buildings were occupied by guests who had booked for the tourism high season, and the quick thinking of the security guard on duty allowed for the resort staff to alert their guests and get them out of the rooms with most of their items intact.

One business owner whose property is in close proximity to Exotic Caye Resort, spoke with us off camera about how he and others helped to put the fire out within two hours' time:

Business Owner

"I received a call at 3:30 in the morning and it was my waitress who lives across the street saying the resort was on fire. Then I asked her if my restaurant was on fire and she said no and I said I was on my way. When I arrived, both fire department's fire trucks were on the scene as well the fire department personnel and San Pedro police department. They were at the time trying to put out 3 buildings that were on fire and there were flames shooting 15, 20 foot in the air at the time when I arrive. At that time, we started to assist as much as possible without being in the way and the fire department, the police department and all the volunteers were able to take the fire under control and put it out. After it was all completed, speaking to one of the volunteers - the way it was found was; He was driving home about 2:30 in the morning and saw smoke coming from the laundry room, which time he immediately called 911 and requested their assistance. He proceeded to come on the property and located the security guard, which time both of them went banging on all the doors and waking all the guest and telling them to evacuate the building, so there was no harm to the people. Thankfully there was no personnel that was injured that were staying in the hotels. There was policeman that I know of who was assisting the fire department who received a pretty good gash to his hand and he will probably require some medical attention. And thankfully the one patrol man had the smarts enough to see that my restaurant has a propane tank on the side of my building and it was starting to heating up from the flames - at which time he and another gentleman moved the propane tank and took it across the street."

The resort manager and his staff have since been able to make preliminary inspections of the damage caused by the fire, and they report to the San Pedro Sun Newspaper that the estimated loss is in the vicinity of about 600 thousand dollars. None of the buildings were insured. The guests were relocated to other resorts on the island, whose staff and managers wanted to assist Exotic Resort in trying to manage this crisis. The San Pedro Sun reports that the principals of the resort will commence rebuilding efforts as soon as they are able to.

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