Police investigating the fatal blaze at a Wellington hostel say they expect to start recovering bodies from the building today.
The death toll from Tuesday's fire at Loafers Lodge in the suburb of Newtown stands at six, but it may be days before a final death toll is known. Police have confirmed they are treating it as arson.
In an update today, Acting District Commander Inspector Dion Bennett said it was likely two bodies would be removed today and two tomorrow.
Police have begun a scene examination and Bennett described the damage on the third floor as “significant”.
“The debris is piled high, and there is much for [search crews] to move and search underneath. We are doing everything to recover the deceased from Loafers Lodge as quickly as we can.”
Police would conduct a karakia before the first body was removed. They would then travel to the mortuary where there was a specific process for disaster victim identification.
Many people remain unaccounted for and police could not confirm the identities of the deceased yet.
Police had been working through an extensive list to track down everyone who might have been staying at the hostel on the night of the fire. So far, 92 people have been accounted for, and less than 20 were unaccounted for.
Some residents may not be able to get their property back, due to safety concerns.
“We have had inquiries from residents asking about when their property may be returned. Until the scene examination has been completed it will not be possible to retrieve any property from the building.”
The property was also damaged by fire and asbestos, and decisions would need to be made about whether it was safe to return that property, he said.
Police had a “large number” of officers working on the investigation, he said, “with the aim of providing a swift and timely outcome and the answers that we all need”.
Bennett confirmed police had a “list of people” being treated as persons of interest to the investigation who police wanted to speak to. He declined to say how many were on that list, and whether any were residents. No arrests had been made.
He declined to say why the fire was being treated as an arson, or whether accelerant was part of the cause of the fire.
Fire response
Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) also provided an update this morning, focusing on the trucks and appliances that were sent to Tuesday's fire.
Chief executive Kerry Gregory wanted to reassure the public FENZ had the staff and appliances needed to respond to the blaze appropriately.
“We dispatched 33 trucks, over 80 firefighters from all over Wellington for the duration of that event,” he said.
FENZ deployed a number of specialist capabilities, operational support, fire investigations, urban search and rescue, and two ladder appliances among other things.
The Newtown trucks arrived within five minutes, and the aerial appliance from Thorndon arrived another three minutes after that.
They deployed “significant resource to successfully manage this incident”. He said the firefighters did an “excellent job”.
“I think you have to understand how it works when you arrive at an operational incident. When our first crews arrive at an incident, it is chaos.”
With everything that was going on at the scene, the extra three minutes for the aerial appliance to arrive was not significant.
“Any fire you go to it’s about what tactics you can put in place with what you’ve got.”
He acknowledged firefighters who were on the scene that day told him they had concerns about which appliances were deployed, and that they had to adjust their tactics.
Gregory said they’d be doing an operational review from the Newtown fire to see what they could learn.
“When I spoke to the crews that I spoke to, this is the day after, it’s really raw for firefighters.
“Most firefighters their whole career don’t go to a fatality in a building... let alone multiple fatalities. You feel like you question yourself around could I have done anything different, what happened?”
That was why it was important to wait for the operational review, he said.
When he met with the fire crews the day after the blaze, he was not questioning them on the tactics they used, he said.
With this fire, recent flooding in the upper North Island, and the loss of two firefighters in Muriwai, it had been a challenging year.
He acknowledged they did have issues with ageing fleets and stations that weren’t fit for purpose, noting 27 per cent of fire appliances were beyond their target life of 20-25 years.
“The legacy condition of many of our stations and our fleet varied significantly from what we would consider fit for purpose vehicles to some that were barely safe to use.”
FENZ has a 20-year capital budget forecast of more than $2.9 billon to improve and replenish main assets. Based on the current forecast income, they can only afford $2 billion, he said.
FENZ officially handed control of the scene over to police yesterday so a painstaking examination could begin.
