Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on February 23, 19.
Fire revisits Porter motel
PORTERー Fire ー possibly the work of an arsonist ー struck a vacant motel here Saturday for the second time in three days, gutting the interior of the structure.
Firemen from Porter, Chesterton and Burns Harbor were summoned to the Edgewater Beach Motel at 11 a.m. when a bedroom on the second floor of the 50-year-old building was reported ablaze. Damage to the motel at Wabash Avenue and Johnson Beach Drive was estimated at $15,000 and brings to $40,000 total losses incurred since another fire hit the motel Thursday night.
A spokeswoman for the Porter Police Department said officers there will investigate the cause of the latest blaze. She said a burn pattern ー indicating the use of some sort of accelerant ー was discovered under the carpeting in the bedroom where Saturday’s fire broke out.
Careless use of smoking materials was blamed on the Thursday fire. A caretaker who was tending to the lodge while it was closed for the winter escaped unharmed from the blaze.
Motel owner Carl Dahlin, East Chicago, was reportedly in California when the fire broke out and unavailable for comment. Dahlin also owns Johnson’s Inn across the street from the burned out Edgewater Beach Motel.
A barricade halts traffic in to and out of the Edgewater Beach Motel in Porter, which was hit twice last week by fires that gutted the interior of the 50-year-old building. The latest fire, which struck Saturday morning, has been blamed on arson and investigators from the Porter Police Department have been assigned to the case. Damage from both blazes is estimated at $41,000.
(V-M: Kathy Steinbach)
