The Bolu Mountains are popular with skiers from Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, and at the start of the two-week school holidays, the hotel was operating at high occupancy.
The northwestern city is about 170 km (105 mi) from Ankara.
Although the fire was confined to one hotel, the governor told Turkish media that a nearby hotel had been evacuated as a precaution.
Ski instructor Nejmi Kepcetutan told Turkish television that he was able to escape because he knew the hotel, and guests who didn’t know it as well as he did were not so lucky.
“People were shouting out the windows, ‘Help’, because there was heavy smoke inside. We pulled out 20-25 people,” he told NTV.
The circumstances that led to the fire have not yet been clarified.
Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said that the prosecutor’s office was appointed to investigate the fire.
