SIMI VALLEY : Arson Suspected in Morning Hotel Fire

An early-morning fire in a second-floor conference room forced 400 guests to evacuate the Radisson Hotel in Simi Valley on Sunday and caused more than $15,000 in damage, the Ventura County Fire Department said.

No one was hurt in the blaze, which started at 5:07 a.m. and was extinguished at 5:19, a department spokesman said. The hotel’s automatic sprinkler system doused most of the flames, he said. Authorities suspect arson.

All but seven rooms in the 195-room hotel were occupied, Manager Ray Burger said. But fire officials said the evacuation went smoothly because of the hotel’s unusual alarm system.

In addition to clanging hallway alarms, the hotel has installed a speaker phone in every room. That allowed the front desk to alert every room at once that the fire alarm was genuine.