What caused a hotel fire disaster in a Turkish ski resort?

The fire that killed 78 people at the Grand Kartal Hotel early Monday morning was one of the deadliest disasters in Türkiye’s history.

Some survivors said they did not hear the alarm, and experts told the BBC they would not have expected such a high death toll in a hotel where fire protection systems were functioning properly.

The 12-storey hotel in Turkey’s popular Kartalkaya ski resort receives thousands of visitors every year, so Turks are wondering how this horrific tragedy would have unfolded at the start of the two-week school holiday.

The fire started in the restaurant area on the fourth floor at 03:27 (00:27 GMT) and firefighters arrived within 45 minutes, the interior minister said.

Some survivors described the smoke coming an hour earlier.

Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the hotel had a fire-fighting capability certificate “issued by the fire department.”

But this was challenged by local mayor Tanju Ozcan, who said the fire department had not issued positive reports since 2007.

Some survivors said they heard no alarms, while there were claims there were deficiencies in the hotel’s fire-extinguishing system.

“My wife smelled the fire,” said Atakan Yelkovan, who said he lived on the third floor of the hotel.

“We were ahead of everyone else. The alarm didn’t go off… It took about an hour to an hour and a half for the fire brigade to arrive. In the meantime, the fourth and fifth floors were burning. People on the upper floors were screaming.”

Some guests on the higher floors tried to escape the bedding, and some jumped to their deaths.

Eylem Senturk said the fire alarm didn’t go off until she left the building. Her husband had to jump out of the hotel because of the smoke: “We were lucky to survive.”

The BBC attempted to contact the hotel’s manager regarding the allegations but has so far received no response.

Eleven people, including the hotel owner, were detained as part of Türkiye’s investigation.

Hotel managers issued a statement saying they mourned the loss and were fully cooperating with authorities.

With fire protection systems fully operational in such a large building, experts say fire detectors are expected to respond to a fire within seconds and send an alert to the fire control dashboard.

Kazim Beceren, president of the Turkish Fire and Education Foundation, told the BBC: “In a good business, this panel should be in charge 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

The death toll is also high, raising further questions.

Professor Sevket Ozgur Atayilmaz, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Yildiz Technical University, said: “Fires will always happen, but we would not expect so many people to die in a building like this.”

“If the structure is designed correctly for fire, if there are escape routes, and smoke is evacuated correctly, fire can be overcome without loss of life.”

The interior minister said there had been two escapes but there were signs they were of poor standards.

An official at the Turkish Engineers and Architects Office (TMMOB) in Erol Percin Bolu said the way the fire spread suggested that fire warning, detection and extinguishing systems may not have occurred.

He said the building’s exterior wooden cladding was supposed to be 100 percent fire-resistant, but was not.

The head of the Turkish Fire and Education Foundation told the BBC that the scale of the fire showed that “firefighting systems do not exist or do not meet standard design”.

There were 238 people staying at the Grand Qatar Hotel at the time.

Kazim Beceren said the fire safety system was designed to take three minutes to evacuate each floor – and under ideal conditions, a facility of more than 200 people could be evacuated in 15 to 30 minutes.

According to the head of the Turkish Fire and Educational Foundation, when the alarm sounds, the person in charge of the fire control dashboard will check the location.

If there is no indication of a false alarm, or a second detector issues a warning, fire alarms are usually activated throughout the building.

In a properly installed system, people are then notified of the nearest fire exit through announcements, flashing lights for those who are sleeping and hearing impaired or audible warnings.

Because fires can spread quickly, sprinkler systems are important for early stage intervention.

The same goes for backup power. Signs and lights pointing to emergency exits showing the way to those exits must be in operation for one to three hours, even if there is a power outage, according to fire codes.

Bolu’s union of engineers and architects said in a statement that “automatic sprinkler systems are mandatory” in buildings of this size.

“Photos on the hotel’s website show that an automatic sprinkler system that was supposed to be installed in 2008 was not installed. As a result of this failure, the fire spread rapidly and there were casualties.”

BBC Turk could not independently confirm the allegations about wooden siding on the building or the hotel’s fire suppression system.

One of the big questions is whether the hotel’s fire protection system is properly inspected.

Bolu mayor Tanju Ozcan said the tourism ministry was responsible because the hotel was outside the boundaries of his town. Erol Percin agrees.

The mayor said the last time Bolu Municipality gave a report about the hotel was in 2007 and there had been no such check since then.

However, Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the hotel did have a fire-fighting capability certificate “issued by the fire department” and had carried out inspections.

There have also been calls for relatively older structures to come under review due to changes in legislation.

Professor Atayilmaz from Yildiz Technical University said: “If localities do not comply with current standards, operations in crowded places such as hotels, residences, nursing homes or kindergartens should be stopped.”