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Kavinda Herath/Stuff
The Pall Mall Arcade building on Dee St which went up in flames early on Wednesday morning. Six people were injured, including a child.
Investigations into what caused a fire which injured six people, including a child, and ripped the guts out of a historic Invercargill CBD building will begin at 7am on Friday.
“There’s a lot of work to be done in there,” fire investigator Murray Milne-Maresca said.
He was hoping the cause of the blaze in the Dee St building would be determined by the end of Friday.
Six people, understood to be staying in the building when the fire took hold, were injured in the early hours of Wednesday – one of them understood to be a 10-year-old boy who was taken to hospital in a serious condition.
Richard Stone/Supplied
Firefighters tackle a blaze in the Pall Mall Arcade building in Dee St, Invercargill in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Flames lit up the Invercargill night as the historic building burned.
Four businesses who worked out of the now damaged building had since moved out, and were facing uncertain futures.
Milne-Maresca said structural engineers, builders and the fire service had put a plan in place to tackle the investigation, which aimed to determine the origin and cause of the blaze.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand district commander Julian Tohiariki said the investigation was dependent on the integrity of the fire scene, and he couldn’t put a timeframe on its completion.
Hot spots could often appear long after the initial work to extinguish a fire had begun.
“Our firefighters will complete routine checks to ensure all hot spots are extinguished. Windy conditions can often fan any small embers trapped amongst debris and reignite a fire,” he said.
Kavinda Herath/Stuff
Firefighters on the scene following a blaze in this Dee St building in Invercargill early on Wednesday.
Tohiariki said he was not in a position to comment about whether fire alarms or sprinklers were in the building, saying it was part of its wider investigation.
He took the opportunity to give some safety tips to the public.
“No matter whether you live in an older building or a new dwelling, people should always check that they have working smoke alarms and have an escape plan.
“That doesn’t just mean knowing where the doors are. People should always have a plan that includes more than one way out of a building, and a safe meeting place so it’s easy to check that everyone is out in the event of an evacuation. Call 111 straight away and never try to go back in to a building once you’ve evacuated.”
An Invercargill City Council spokesperson said a building compliance officer had been onsite to make a safety assessment of the fire damaged building.
“We are satisfied the building has been made immediately safe with access restrictions in place and a cordon around the site.
“The building owner has engaged directly with an engineer and we understand the engineer is still working through their assessment.”
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