Exterior Fire Exit

An exterior fire exit stair at Kinugawa Kan runs down the side of the concrete-tier hotel building, the steel framework anchored to the wall and the treads switching back at each landing to drop another storey. The steel is painted dark green, weathered to a near-black tone along the side facing the gorge. Some of the treads have collapsed under their own corrosion; the handrail is still in place but bent in several sections. The landings open onto small platforms at each floor level, with the original exit doors mostly still hung in their frames. From the top of the stair, the river gorge drops away to the Kinugawa River below.

Fire exits were mandatory infrastructure for Japanese hotels of Kinugawa Kan's scale, with the building's tiered concrete construction requiring the stair to run the full height of the cliff face. The exit served the upper guest floors during the hotel's operational life and was inspected and maintained as part of the routine compliance schedule. After the June 1999 bankruptcy, no maintenance was carried out. The stair has weathered through more than two decades of Tochigi mountain weather. The exit doors at each landing are mostly still in their original positions; the stair itself is no longer safe to descend.