Ski instructors from Bitlis, eastern Türkiye, who survived the fire at Grand Kartal Hotel in Bolu Kartalkaya Ski Center, helped rescue 26 trapped people by climbing the awnings around the hotel.
Mazlum Özgeç and Irem Yıldız, who have been working as ski instructors in Kartalkaya for 10 years, managed to escape from the second floor of the Grand Kartal Hotel, where they were staying with other instructors, during the fire.
By climbing the awnings around the hotel, Özgeç and Yıldız assisted in rescuing 26 people who were trapped in the hotel by helping them down with a ladder. They shared their experiences during the fire with Anadolu Agency (AA) reporters.
Özgeç explained that when they woke up, the entire hotel was covered in smoke and said, "We know every part of the hotel since we've worked there for 10 years, even so, we had to force ourselves out. A female staff member of the hotel woke us up. The floor we were on was filled with smoke. Thanks to that staff member, we are alive. When we woke up, people were shouting, 'Help, save us.' The first fire truck arrived around 4:30 a.m. But it wasn't enough. They couldn't reach everyone. They were probably there to extinguish the fire, not to rescue. They didn't know it was a rescue situation."
Özgeç described how some people tried to escape by lowering sheets from the windows, and some jumped from the windows, he continued: "We went to the awning at the entrance of the building and helped 12 people down with a ladder from one room. Then we moved to another awning and helped another eight people down. After that, we moved to another awning and helped six more people down. I'm talking about the entrance part of the building. We couldn't intervene with the upper floors at all. AFAD, UMKE, and other teams were there. The teams working there evacuated us because there was also a risk of explosion."
Özgeç emphasized that they knew every part of the hotel since they had worked in Kartalkaya for a long time. "The fire started on the fourth floor, where the restaurant was, when we woke up and opened the door, everything was covered in smoke. Since we knew the hotel, we went down one floor and exited through the ski room. That's how we escaped. The guests probably couldn't find the exit due to the smoke. That might be why there were more casualties."
"The atmosphere there is indescribable. Because we could hear the voices of children and women from the windows, shouting, 'We can't come down, we can't get out, help us.' We managed to get the people from the third floor down by ourselves, but we couldn't reach the people above. Some of them were rescued by the firefighters," Özgeç added.
Irem Yıldız, who also worked as a ski instructor at the Grand Kartal Hotel, mentioned that most of the ski instructors, including those from Bitlis, were staying on the second floor of the hotel.
Yıldız explained that a hotel employee knocked on their room doors during the night and woke everyone up, saying, "There is a severe fire." She recalled what happened: "There were two other ski instructors in my room. Our room was filled with smoke. I opened the window to breathe. I wasn’t fully aware of the situation. I thought it was a small issue, and we would go back to the room later. I just grabbed my phone and left. When we exited the room, the corridor was filled with smoke. We went down one floor with the instructors and exited through the ski room."
She continued: "Then, we tried to help people with the hotel staff. It was a terrible night. Being on the second floor was a great advantage for us, and we knew the hotel by heart. We used the concrete fire escape inside, went through the ski room, and headed toward the slopes. Then we started trying to rescue people. There was great cooperation until the firefighters and AFAD arrived."
A devastating fire engulfed an 11-story hotel at Kartalkaya Ski Resort in Bolu, in northwestern Türkiye, on Jan. 21, resulting in 78 fatalities and numerous injuries. The blaze began around 3:30 a.m. on the fourth floor of the 161-room Grand Kartal Hotel, which is situated on a cliff, complicating firefighting efforts. Despite extensive firefighting operations that lasted over 10 hours, the fire caused significant loss of life.
