A blaze at a Basingstoke hotel tied up more than 30 firefighters at the weekend.
The fire started in a boiler room at Beach Arms Hotel on Andover Road at around midday on Saturday.
Fire crews from Basingstoke, Overton, Kingsclere and Eastleigh were called to the hotel after its staff lost control of the blaze.
Station manager Ryan Thurman said: “The hotel manager took the right course of action by swiftly evacuating the whole premises and alerting the fire and rescue service.”
He said if the hotel had not had such a well-maintained smoke alarm system, the fire could have caused serious damage to the roof, if not the whole building.
“The effective evacuation of staff and hotel residents at the incident should be commended, as should the successful actions of the fire crews that tackled the blaze.”
Hampshire Fire and Rescue has launched an investigation into the cause of the fire.
