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  • 5 months ago
Investigators are working to establish the cause of a house fire that killed four people in Queensland’s Central Highlands.

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00:00Investigators, or fire crews rather, were called to this home on Opal Street, this duplex,
00:07just before 7am yesterday. The home was fully engulfed and neighbours were trying to get
00:12the blaze out with garden hoses and bottles and cups and whatever they could find. Fire
00:17crews, it took 25 of them to get the blaze under control in about half an hour and they
00:24were able then to get inside and obviously found those devastating scenes of the four
00:27people who had died. So there was a man in his 30s, a teenage girl and two toddlers, a
00:33boy and a girl, both under two. Really, really tragic. Police weren't able to confirm what
00:39the relationship is between those four people and investigations, you know what, they are
00:44continuing. Fortunately though, two people were able to escape the house out of the fire
00:50and they were taken to hospital for treatment. So Katrina, is there any idea about how this
00:55fire started? There was some discussion among the community yesterday about an e-scooter
01:01battery. Police said that is one of the lines of inquiry that they're following, they're not
01:07ruling anything out, but they're definitely not confirming that that is the cause. And they've
01:12got investigators here from Brisbane, Rockhampton, combing the scene. This will be a crime scene
01:17declared here on Opal Street for some days, while they tried to determine that exact cause of
01:22how this tragedy occurred. We heard from the Queensland Premier yesterday speaking of just
01:26how tight-knit the community of Emeralds is. How is the community feeling? What are you hearing
01:32from locals? Yeah, it is one of those kind of really small rural communities here in the
01:38central highlands and it has really left everyone reeling. A lot of people were talking about it
01:43yesterday. We saw here just a stream of people coming and going and leaving those tributes and the
01:49flowers and notes and teddy bears and really quite emotional scenes, as you can imagine
01:54they would be under the circumstances. The community, I suppose, is really wrapping its arms around
01:59each other and no doubt today we'll start hearing of some support services that will be offered.
02:05But now, yeah, everyone's really kind of banding together amongst the tragedy as a kind of grapple
02:10with what's happened.
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