BREEZEWOOD - A Breezewood hotel caught fire Sunday, leaving 15 long-term residents homeless in the highway community's third major hotel blaze in 18 months.
Firefighters received two calls Sunday morning from a hotel on the 600 block of South Breezewood Road, Breezewood Fire Department Chief Toby Colledge said. Colledge said he was uncertain of the hotel's name; it has reportedly changed several times in recent years.
The second call drew firefighters from as far as Bedford and Fulton counties, Colledge said, and seriously damaged all of the hotel's 13 rooms. Three rooms were destroyed, he said.
Fifteen people in seven families, including three children, were displaced after the blaze, the American Red Cross stated in a news release.
A state police fire marshal will investigate the fire's cause, Colledge said.
Breezewood's many hotels, some of them shuttered, have been the site of several man-made fires in recent months. In 2011, an alleged arson ring torched several rooms in the abandoned Penn Aire Motel, while police attributed an October fire at the Breezewood Motel to a methamphetamine lab explosion. Police charged alleged meth ring members for endangering other hotel guests' lives.
There was no immediate evidence to link the Sunday blaze to meth production, Colledge said.
