Fire at Fantasy Island, Honduras

It's not just liveaboards that can catch fire, as the guests at Fantasy Island Beach Resort and Marina in Roatan discovered on March 2. Undercurrent subscriber Greg White (Cobden, IL) wrote to us from nearby CoCo View to tell us what he witnessed.

"Apparently, the resort lost something like 37 units, but parts of it were spared. Local reports say no injuries and that the fire started in the kitchen. Guests were moved to other locations but some lost everything that was in their rooms. I'm told there was a problem fighting the fire due to damage to a bridge connecting the resort to the rest of Roatan. Our room at CoCo View is closest to Fantasy Island. Fortunately, the winds were blowing away from us, or the fire could have spread here because it was really huge," he wrote.

The dive-center and two-thirds of the accommodation were spared.

And though it was huge, Undercurrent correspondent Carol Cox, wrote us the next morning: "We are waking up at Coco View to the news that Fantasy Island burned down last night. We just got in yesterday and slept through it. It's still smoldering. We weren't the only guests at CoCo View who slept through it."

ARCplusnews reports one Fantasy Island guest, Chrissy Hendrickson, who had just finished dinner heard hotel staff shouting, "Everybody out, get out of here!" According to her account, they were told the kitchen had caught fire.

By the time she came downstairs, the west-side area was fully engulfed in flames. The fire quickly spread into other sections of the property, including the dining area beneath the lobby and directly below the kitchen. "It moved everywhere very fast," she said.

Hendrickson emphasized that local residents stepped in immediately to help evacuate guests. They were first transported by small boats to the marina, then transferred onto yachts, and later driven by community members in private vehicles to the mall. From there, buses took them to the Henry Morgan Hotel, where they were temporarily accommodated.

"Most of us have lost everything -- money, passports, credit cards, driver's licenses -- everything," she said.