In the wee early hours of the morning, an inferno ravaged its way through a 17th-century hotel on picturesque Nantucket Island, but despite the damage, no guests were injured thanks to a heroic rescue operation carried out by an off-duty fire captain backed up by a group of civilians.
The hotel in question, The Veranda House Hotel, was originally built back in 1684 and has stood as a landmark of the Massachusetts island, was entirely gutted by the fire, which was reported just before 7 in the morning. However, before the Nantucket Fire Department could get on the scene, the off-duty captain and a group of others rushed into the 18-room boutique hotel in order to rescue the two remaining guests, reported authorities.
“The Veranda House team is deeply grateful to the Nantucket Fire Department and first responders for their quick action taken during this incident,” explained hotel officials in a release.
The uncontrolled blaze was able to spread out of the hotel grounds over to a pair of nearby buildings and forced the local fire crews to fight the inferno well into the night. Firefighters then stayed on the scene until well into the morning on Sunday to ensure nothing would reignite.
Were being told there are two other buildings in addition to the Veranda House that have caught fire.
NFD believes all guests & staff made it out alive.
A neighbor credited a Jamaican woman delivering newspapers for first spotting it, calling it in, alerting hotel #nantucket pic.twitter.com/hY6lGXRZBu
— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) July 9, 2022
A pair of firefighters have been transported to a local hospital due to heat exhaustion, and another suffered an injury to their back, as reported by NBCNews.
“I would like to further state the heroic efforts of several community members including Patrick Marks, Jim McIntosh and off-duty Captain Nathan Barber (and I am sure I may be missing names) [who] saved lives on Saturday,” explained Stephen Murphy, the Fire Chief of Nantucket, via a press release carried out later that Sunday. “They all entered into life threatening conditions in order to warn, rescue and remove people within the building. Their bravery will not go unnoticed.”
As of writing, there has not been released an official cost estimate for the total damages, though all of the structures which were involved in the blaze were labeled as “total losses” by officials for the city. The destruction of the Veranda House Hotel will end up being a massive staggering hit to the economy of Nantucket Island, as the hotel was known to play host to many extremely prominent guests such as Fred Rogers, who was known for his work on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” as reported by a post from The Boston Globe.