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Dozens of firefighters respond to 2-alarm fire at Northwest DC hotel

A spokesperson for the fire department said about 100 firefighters are responding to the fire at the 10-story building

WASHINGTON — Firefighters in D.C. worked quickly to extinguish a two-alarm fire at a Northwest D.C. luxury hotel.

Crews with DC Fire and EMS were called to the 900 block of F Street Northwest in the Penn Quarter neighborhood for a report of a fire around 4 a.m. Friday. Once firefighters got on scene, they found a 10-story building, the Riggs Washington hotel, with fire in the walls and the ceiling of a sixth floor room in the building that had extended to the seventh floor. A second-alarm was called to get more firefighters to the scene to help extinguish the flames and evacuate people from the building. 

In a tweet, DC Fire and EMS estimated about 100 firefighters and 20 fire trucks responded to the scene. 

Vito Maggiolo, a spokesperson for the department, could not say whether the fire was caused by severe weather in the area Thursday night. 

Credit: DC Fire and EMS

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Maggiolo tells WUSA9 that the building was evacuated and all people inside of the hotel made it out safely. No injuries were reported. It's not clear how many people were evacuated.

Maggiolo said the fire has been extinguished, and firefighters conducted a full search of the hotel out of an abundance of caution.

Firefighters were in the area after responding to a separate fire earlier in the morning. They were alerted to the hotel fire by a manager, Maggiolo said. 

Video posted to Twitter by a hotel guest shows firefighters using a ladder truck to get to the smoke and flames early Friday.

Some roads in the area were closed due to fire activity early Friday. All roads are now open.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

According to the Riggs Washington website, the hotel has 181 guest rooms and suites and is located in the historic Riggs National Bank building. Firefighters did not have an estimate of damage caused to the hotel.

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