A group of Wellington flatmates living opposite Loafers Lodge described dramatic scenes on their street when the hostel caught fire overnight.
Justin Thomson, Jamie Stratford, Jack Randall, Corey Mathewson and Jack Bushell live across from the Adelaide Road lodge in Newtown and were woken up by the early morning blaze.
The fire started at around 12.25am this morning when emergency services were called to the scene of the fire.
So far, six people have been confirmed dead, with an unknown number still unaccounted for.
The lodge housed a mixture of short and long-term residents. Emergency services are making sure the site is safe before they can do a full investigation, but authorities believed fewer than 10 people died.
The young men described dramatic scenes, with Thomson saying around 30 to 40 people were out on the road.
“We kind of realised... it was pretty serious... we only saw residents out on the road.”
Mathewson described the heat coming off the building, which they could feel on the windows of their flat.
“You could feel the heat,” he told 1News.
“At the window upstairs, touching it, you could just feel it.”
Thompson saw “things dripping” from the upper part of the building, assuming it was materials being belted by the flames.
He saw something “swing across the building” while on fire before dropping to the ground.
“Yeah, I think the windows in the frame became weak, so it just shattered and fell to the ground, and sparks went everywhere.”
Bushell said that for the majority of the time, they could only see smoke billowing from the burning hostel - but things ramped up as the blaze continued.
“Majority of the time, it was only smoke, ramped up in the last half an hour of us watching,” he said.
“This morning, you could smell... It doesn't smell great around here... I'm not sure if it's the asbestos or what, but it's not a great environment to be around.”
He said that after the fire was under control, the group went back to sleep - not knowing how fatal it had been for the hostel's inhabitants.
“We had no clue; we just thought it was a fire,” he said.
“We saw so many people on the road. We just couldn't think it was possible people were hurt or dead even.
“Pretty sad to hear this morning, waking up, hearing that people had lost their lives.”
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