Disneyland Hotel evacuated after fire erupts from a safety hazard created by a stockpile of linen unsafely stored in the hotel's basement

The basement just underneath the lobby (shown above) of the Frontier Tower of the Disneyland Hotel is where the fire broke out
A small fire at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California broke out early Saturday morning, sending smoke billowing through the ventilation system and triggered a partial evacuation of the hotel, according to Anaheim officials.

The east tunnel of the Disneyland Hotel underneath the Adventure
Tower (shown above) is representative of the entire underground tunnel
system at the Disneyland Hotel. It's old, not well ventilated, with numerous safety
hazards to staff such as exposure to laundry chemical, asbestos and radon.
The small fire broke out in the south basement tunnel of the Frontier Tower of the hotel just before 6 a.m. Saturday morning, said Sgt. Daron Wyatt of the Anaheim Police Department (APD), and was extinguished quickly.

One firefighter employed by Disneyland suffered from minor smoke inhalation but declined treatment. No one else was injured in the incident, according to the Anaheim Police Department.

The blaze appeared to have been sparked by a malfunctioning machine that contained oil in the hotel's huge laundry facilities, which services both the Disneyland Hotel and the Grand California Hotel and is also located in the south basement of the Disneyland Hotel.

The fire quickly spread to several open bins of linen and towels which were unsafely stockpiled all along the south tunnel hallway, which caused the blaze to spread and generated a significant amount of smoke, according to one hotel staff member who requested to remain anonymous.

"The way that the Disneyland Hotel unsafely stores clean and dirty linen and towels along the hallway of the south basement tunnel is so dangerous," said our inside source. "It was a fire hazard just waiting to happen, and OSHA should do something about this."


Smoke from the second-alarm fire then entered the air ventilation system of the Frontier Tower of the Disneyland Hotel, requiring the evacuation of the first three floors of the tower due to potential harm to hotel guests and employees from smoke inhalation.

The entrance into the south basement tunnels of the Disneyland Hotel is right
next to the Frontier Tower on the east side of the hotel
According to APD Sgt. Wyatt, no guests were ever in danger; however, some guests were still moved to the nearby Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel anyway.

The Disneyland Hotel has an old, interconnected, and rectangular-shaped tunnel system underneath the hotel's three towers and convention center area which is used by employees to service the hotel with linens, maintenance, administrative support, and room service.

Many employees have complained that the old tunnel system underneath the Disneyland hotel are not well ventilated and are a safety and health hazard to the hotel staff due to dust and exposure to dangerous and potentially carcinogenic chemicals such as asbestos, laundry chemicals, industrial chemicals, and radon gas. Pipes and wires are also largely exposed on the ceiling of the basement throughout the tunnel system.

Disneyland Hotel officials have long conceded as far back as 1981 that not much could be done to guarantee the 61-year-old tunnel system could be rendered asbestos-free.


Roy M. Rawls the chief financial officer of the Wrather Corporation, the former owner of the Disneyland Hotel, said about the state's requirement that the hotel be asbestos-free for eligibility to refinance debt owed on the Disneyland Hotel back in 1981, "It's really an impossible requirement."

The hallway of the third floor of the Frontier Tower of the Disneyland Hotel
The Wrather Corp.'s failure to successfully refinance their debt on the hotel, due to the state's asbestos-free requirement, eventually led to Wrather's sale of the hotel to the Walt Disney Corporation back in 1984.

The narrow and rather clausterphobic underground tunnels accessed by hotel staff at the 61-year-old Disneyland Hotel have been said to have also inspired Disney World's underground tunnels, called the Utilidors, in the Magic Kingdom and other theme parks of Walt Disney World.

This was not the first evacuation of the Frontier Tower, or for that matter at one of Disneyland's hotels, due to a hazardous situation caused by a workplace safety incident. 

Just a few months ago in March of this year, guests on the third floor of the Frontier Tower were evacuated after a hazmat spill of industrial drain cleaner injured four hotel employees. 

Fumes from that chemical spill also leaked into the air ventilation system in that incident, creating a safety hazard for hotel guests as well.

And back in January of this year, a fire that broke out in a pizza oven's exhaust vent at the PCH Grill in Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel also caused an evacuation of guests from the hotel.


And just last month, a family sued Disney after they were bitten by bed bugs in an infested hotel room they stayed in at the Disney's Grand Californian Hotel during the summer of 2014. Disneyland has since employed a trained beagle to inspect and sniff out tiny parasites in its hotel rooms in all three Disneyland hotels on property on a weekly basis.

The north entrance to the Frontier Tower of the Disneyland Hotel
  

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