Clean up underway to rebuild Palm Desert Marriott Fairfield Inn

We are learning the Marriott Fairfield Inn in Palm Desert is salvageable after that four-alarm fire nearly two weeks ago.

A clean up company, American Technologies, is working around the clock to get the hotel ready to be rebuilt, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

On April 28th, the Fairfield Inn went up in flames. An air conditioning unit the roof caught the attic on fire, not even the hotel’s newly installed sprinklers could slow down the fast moving flames.

It took over a hundred firefighters four hours to contain.

Cal Fire estimates the fire damaged nearly half of the 112 rooms, about $8 million total.

“We have to shore it up make sure it’s safe, make sure it’s able to stay up and just remove the affected materials,” said ATI, Operations Manager Juan Saenz.

What the fire didn’t burn, smoke and soot took care of.

“There was a good amount of damage to the structural portion of it, I think a lot of it has to do with smoke and soot damage done to it, so we are doing a lot of hardcore demo, including removing drywall throughout the building,” said Saenz.

Water also soaked through all three floors.

“It could be from firefighters and of course pipes bursting,” said Saenz

Our cameras caught video of water dripping down the walls into the hotel lobby, hours after firefighters turned off their hoses.

“One of the things particular about this unit is that there was a lot of water effected material throughout the building,” said Saenz.

Everything furniture, carpet, even the mattresses needs to be ripped out or replaced.

“Right now we have about 85 people around the clock and we’ve had them here already for almost a week,” said Saenz.

American Technologies estimates there’s still about a week and a half’s worth of work still to go.

Marriott’s website still lists the Palm Desert hotel as a place you can stay in the desert, however when you go to book a room none are available.

As for the employees who used to work at the hotel, Marriott did not return our inquires. However, we’re told employees got two weeks pay and most of them found jobs at other Marriott hotels in the Valley.