Photo: CTV

Fire destroyed a century-old Campbell River hotel Tuesday night.

The blaze at the Quinsam Hotel displaced more than a dozen residents. All of them got out safely.

Firefighters were called to the scene about midnight and found heavy smoke and flames shooting from the building.

“It is an older building and a lot of different renovations occurred within the structure,” deputy fire chief Thomas Doherty told CTV. “So, there’s a lot of different cavities throughout. It’s one of those ones that one day, we knew we’d be faced with something like this.”

It's not known what started the blaze, but firefighters responded a smaller fire earlier in the day in one of the suites. It was extinguished without incident.

“When I kicked the door in, another guy came in and got the fire extinguisher, another guy came in and then we had to duck down, so I crawled on my knees and I grabbed a couple of guys out of there,” said ​resident Richard Millar. “Next thing you know all heck broke loose.”

– with files from CTV Vancouver Island