Three-Alarm Fire Damages Student Housing at Saddlebrook Resort

Thanks to an alert student and some smart thinking, the only casualty of a fire at Saddlebrook Resort & Spa off S.R. 54 on June 9 was the building where the blaze started.

The fire, which never got out of the control of local firefighters that morning, caused excessive damage to one of the buildings used to house Saddlebrook Preparatory Academy golfers and tennis players, but all 28 students were able to escape unharmed, as well as 12 others that were in the building.

According to Saddlebrook general manager Pat Ciaccio, a student smelled smoke in his dorm room around 2:30 a.m. and called security before going outside of his room to pull the fire alarm. He and another student then went room to room to alert the other students.

“Each month, we do a fire drill in school, and it went just as they practiced it,’’ said Ciaccio. “Security was there within seconds. The fire department was there within minutes. It went about as good as it can go. I hope we never have to deal with one again.”

The fire is believed to have started due to a short circuit in the second-floor bathroom ceiling, Ciaccio said.

Pasco County Fire Rescue’s Shawn Whited said it took 55 firefighters to control the blaze, until all of the hot spots were extinguished around 8 a.m.

The three-alarm fire required eight fire engines and one ladder truck to extinguish, including an “aerial assault” on the fire.

The students were moved to another building. The following day was their graduation ceremony.

Saddlebrook Resort was developed in 1979 by current Chairman and CEO Tom Dempsey, and opened in 1981. Highly regarded for its posh accommodations, golf course and professional tennis players who have trained there, the resort started Saddlebrook Prep in 1992. A boarding school for budding golf and tennis professionals within the resort, Saddlebrook Prep has almost 100 students hailing from 26 different countries.

All have returned home for the summer, Ciaccio said, and those who were in the fire-damaged building will be assigned different housing in September when they return.

Ciaccio says he does not yet have a dollar amount for the damage to the two-story building — which had 16 suites with two rooms in each suite — and won’t know the cost of damages until restoration finishes the clean up and the insurance companies finish their work.

“There is going to be a pretty extensive rebuild,’’ he said, estimating that it will be at least nine months before the building can be used again.