A fire at a Wellington hostel that killed at least six people is being investigated as arson by New Zealand’s police, who have started a homicide inquiry.
Nobody has been arrested, Insp Dion Bennett said on Wednesday. He would not say why officers believed the fire was deliberately lit, or whether accelerants were used.
A day after fire ripped through the 92-room hostel there is still no definite number of people missing, Mr Bennett said.
The current total of those unaccounted for is less than 20, including the six confirmed killed, he said.
“Gut feeling is that yes, it may climb,” said Mr Bennett of the death toll.
Investigators have yet to learn if the source of the blaze was a couch fire that occurred two hours earlier.
The fire broke out at 12.25am on Tuesday, prompting dozens of residents of the accommodation, called Loafers Lodge, to flee their beds. Some jumped from windows of the four-storey building, and five were rescued from the roof before the fire was brought under control at about 6am.
Mr Bennett said not everyone who was at the hostel had registered themselves as safe with the authorities, and urged those who escaped the building to contact the police. Some residents left their phones in their rooms when they fled.
Small groups of police officers entered the charred hostel building for the first time on Wednesday afternoon to begin a scene examination, Mr Bennett said. Entry had not been possible earlier due to concerns about the building’s safety, and the level of contaminants searchers are exposed to is being monitored, he added.
The fire service earlier said there were no sprinklers in the building – it was not legally required to have them – and there have been conflicting reports about when and whether alarms sounded at the time the blaze began.
The hostel in Newtown – near central Wellington – was home to a mix of short- and long-term tenants, including workers at the nearby hospital. – Guardian