TRUMBULL COUNTY Fire at Econo Lodge prompts more than 50 guests to evacuate

Econo Lodge guests were calm as they left the smoke-filled motel.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
LIBERTY -- Irene Perry was bleaching her hair early this morning when she was suddenly forced to flee her Econo Lodge room.
"I still didn't get all my roots done," 54-year-old Perry of Warren remarked after flames at the East Liberty Street motel were extinguished.
"I left my junk there and my watch," said Perry, who was staying at the motel while finding an apartment.
Perry was one of 50 to 60 lodgers evacuated when flames broke out shortly before 4:30 a.m. in the owner's second-floor living quarters above the lobby.
There were no injuries. Fire Chief Michael Durkin estimated the damage at between $60,000 and $65,000.
On first floor
Owner Manher Desai said he and his wife, Pallavi, were sleeping on couches off the first-floor lobby because they were working the night shift.
They were going to leave this morning for Illinois to visit their son.
"I heard a big bang and some crackling," Desai recalled. He got up and looking around, but couldn't find anything unusual. He returned to lie down.
"Then I heard a big bang," Desai said. He thought somebody was knocking on the door. He went upstairs to the couple's apartment only to find flames shooting from the back of their bed next to a wall.
Desai and his wife both called police. He went door to door, knocking to wake up his guests.
Durkin said smoke from the fire vented out of the building, but some was sucked back into the rooms and hallway through the ventilation system.
Marvin Chandler of San Diego, Calif., was one of the guests who fled.
"Basically, the alarm went off, I got my stuff and left the building," said the 32-year-old Chandler, who is in the area to reunite with his wife in Canfield and her two children.
"It got the blood flowing," said Chandler, who spent 6 1/2 years in the Army.
People were calm, he said, except for a woman and her child who did panic a bit.
Sent to another motel
The guests were sent to the nearby Days Inn, where they got a free room.
"I'm kind of wired," Chandler said while in the lobby of the Days Inn. "I'll keep myself busy until I crash."
Joe Kucala of Austintown said he heard the alarm, grabbed his watch and keys and left the building. That took about a minute.
"Everybody was calm. Everybody was well-organized, said 41-year-old Kucala, who has a background in hazardous materials management.
yovich@vindy.com