Fire at Vineland Ramada Hotel Injures One, Cause Under Investigation

Smoke and flames ripped through the kitchen of the Dakota restaurant inside the Ramada on West Landis Avenue just after 2 a.m. Thursday, March 26, sending one person to the hospital and leaving investigators with questions that remain unanswered.

The blaze broke out at the Ramada on Landis Avenue near Route 55 in Vineland, Cumberland County, where crews arrived to find flames coming from the Dakota restaurant inside the hotel and were able to contain the fire to the kitchen area. One person was sent to the hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.

The Ramada Vineland, the only full-service hotel in Cumberland County, has been a mainstay in Vineland and surrounding areas for over 65 years. Its Dakota Prime Steakhouse and Sushi Bar is described as one of the finest restaurants in the area, featuring a stylish atmosphere suited for romantic dinners and business travelers alike. Whether the restaurant will resume operations in the near term was not immediately clear.

Accounts of the fire's scale differ. Photographer Gil Aponte, who was on scene, told WPG Talk Radio that the two-alarm blaze appeared to start in the attic and that roughly 30 people were evacuated from the two-story, 100-room hotel. He also said no alarms sounded before the fire broke out and that firefighters told him one guest jumped from a second-story window. WPG Talk Radio further reported that two people were injured, including a police officer treated for smoke inhalation, and that the fire was brought under control around 4:30 a.m.

Those details conflict with other reporting, which indicated that no one inside the hotel area was evacuated and that only one person was hospitalized. The discrepancies in injury counts, evacuation numbers, and the fire's point of origin have not been resolved by an official statement from the Vineland Fire Department or Vineland Police Department.

An IHOP is located on the main level of the Ramada property. The Wingate by Wyndham and Hampton Inn, both situated adjacent to the Ramada on Landis Avenue, were unaffected by the blaze, according to Aponte.

The fire left one person injured and taken to a hospital for treatment. The identity and condition of that individual have not been publicly released. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, and no official incident report had been issued as of Thursday morning.