Investigators are looking into whether an argument inside a northwest Harris County motel room is in any way connected to the fire that broke out shortly after.
The call came in around 4:30 a.m. Thursday.
Visitors staying at the Garden Suites motel off SH-249 and Old Bammel N Houston Road were evacuated while crews battled the flames.
Four rooms on the first floor of the motel were damaged by the fire.
The fire appears to have started in room 109 on the first floor.
The fire chief says other guests at the hotel heard a man and a woman arguing and screaming in that room around 3 a.m.
Investigators say the woman left the motel.
The man was found on the ground outside the room. He was taken to the hospital to be treated for non-life threatening injuries.
He is being questioned by fire investigators.
Curtis Thompson was staying in room 107, next door to where the fire started. Thompson said he tried to help the man lying on the ground, then went to work waking people up.
“After I got him cleared out of the way I just ran back and forth screaming and hollering, ‘Hey everybody get out! There’s an emergency! Get out!” Thompson said.
Two rooms on the first floor of the motel were damaged by the fire. Two rooms directly above had smoke damage.
“What happened was we heard all the alarms. I stepped out and saw the hotel room on the bottom was on fire,” said hotel guest Morland Broussard.
Fire officials say the motel has very good surveillance cameras and they hope the video will give them a better idea of how the fire started.
Power has been cut off to the entire hotel as a precaution.
The Red Cross is assisting the motel guests as they work to find other places to stay. The motel was at half capacity when the fire broke out.
