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Suspicious circumstances surround yesterday’s fire at Fijian retail giant Morris Hedstrom’s Nadi branch, fire investigators say, with preliminary investigations attributing the cause to arson.
National Fire Authority (NFA) spokesman Ritesh Kumar said while the investigation was still under way, the probe so far indicated someone had entered the supermarket to set fire to the supermarket’s top-floor housing its bulk storage section.
Carpenters Properties managing director Daniel Whippy told FijiLive the fire was concentrated in the bulk store’s stationery section containing financial records, although those were secondary records as there were copies on microfilm and disk.
Whippy said the section was out of bounds for operational staff.
“We’re quite confident it wasn’t an electrical fault as we had just completed a major upgrade to the switchboard worth $90,000 to $100, 000,” said Whippy.
He said the Carpenters Group had contracted one main consultant for all electrical work at its properties.
“We’ve done away with using backyard electrical operators.”
Whippy estimated damage from the fire at between $30,000 to $40,000.
He said the fire insurance cover was worth between $4 million to $5 million.
The NFA expects the investigation report to be finalised by Monday.
It said a major disaster was averted in the tourist town since the bulk storage contained highly flammable liquids including liquor, aerosol cans and chemicals.
The fire began at around 4.45 am yesterday.
The supermarket, on the bottom floor, opened for business this morning while cleaning work was being carried out on the top floor.
