You Know What This Hotel Made Out of Ice Needs? Smoke Detectors!
The regulations will be followed, even if they make no sense
Visitors to the IceHotel in the village of Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, should consider themselves lucky. Well, obviously, the hotel, which is exactly what the name suggests, is a huge draw around the world and reservations aren't exactly easy to come by. Anybody who can afford a room there probably leads a pretty lucky life. But visitors are also lucky that they all haven't perished in a roaring fire! It turns out the IceHotel has been operating all this time (since 1990) with no smoke detectors!
Authorities in Sweden have finally put an end to this reckless endangerment by the company. Courtesy of Agence France-Presse:
The Ice Hotel, located in the small Arctic town of Jukkasjarvi, is following a request by authorities to guarantee the safety of its guests.
Hotel spokeswoman Beatrice Karlsson said the hotel was a little surprised at first, but understood as "there are things that can actually catch fire, like pillows, sleeping bags or reindeer skins".
"To us the most important concern is the safety of our clients, so we will comply," she said.
Some may point out that fires that break out in pillows and sleeping bags are unlikely to spread anywhere in a hotel made entirely out of ice or produce enough smoke to cause serious inhalation problems, but that's not the point! The point is that safety rules must be followed no matter what!
Plus, ice can totally catch on fire. As this little experiment below shows, all they have to do is accidentally build the IceHotel on top of a bunch of calcium carbide:
