Firefighters on continued to monitor the remains of the vacant Red Carpet Inn on Bush Drive Wednesday morning after a fire Tuesday severely damaged the building.Public Safety Maj. Billy Bradshaw said the fire is under control, but fire crews monitored the scene throughout the night.  Morganton Department of Public Safety Investigator David Curry said officers are still assessing the rubble and investigating the crime scene.

Christopher George Myers, 36, was charged Tuesday with burning an uninhabited house, factory or store. In 1996 Myers pleaded guilty to second-degree arson for the June 1995 burning the home of his mother, Linda Myers, on Bill Epley Road.  Myers told investigators that he used gasoline as an accelerant to start the fire, Curry said. There were three ignition points inside the building, which had no doors or windows at the time.  Curry said Myers had been squatting at the location for approximately three weeks.

Curry said Myers obtained the gasoline from neighboring gas stations, where he would ask customers for bottles of gas, which he inhaled. In 2006, Myers pleaded guilty to inhaling toxic vapors in Burke County district court.  AJ Crawley, an employee at neighboring Hampton Inn, noticed the fire Tuesday afternoon and called 911. Crawley said within three minutes the relatively small fire had engulfed the building.  The fire left the unoccupied building severely damaged. The property was sold about a year ago to Hunting Creek Associates, not Fulenwider Enterprises as reported Wednesday.

Six people visited the emergency room at Grace Hospital for heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation, Anna Wilson of the Blue Ridge Healthcare marketing department said. None were admitted, but the patients included emergency workers, a firefighter, a hospital security officer and a passerby.