A 50-year-old man, who has name suppression, is accused of murdering five people by setting Wellington's Loafers Lodge hostel alight in 2023. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
The first firefighter to enter Loafers Lodge hostel as it went up in flames says the building was "pitch black" with thick smoke and it was so hot he could feel his ears burn when he stood up.
Brady Cutting has given evidence in the High Court at Wellington, in the trial of a man accused of murdering five people by setting the boarding hostel alight on 16 May, 2023.
The 50-year-old defendant has name suppression, and his lawyers have indicated they will use the defence of insanity.
The Crown says the man deliberately lit the fire, he knew it was morally wrong and he knew people could die as a result.
It began calling witnesses on Monday, including firefighters who laid bare the scene they were met with when they arrived at Loafers Lodge.
Cutting told the court he and his colleague were the first inside the building about 12.30am.
On his way in he passed a man who was catching his breath: "I believed he may have come from close to the fire."
Cutting said he and the other firefighter connected the fire hoses on level two, and walked up the stairs to level three - where the fire started - where they came across five or six people loitering in the stairwell.
"Notably, there was one man standing in the hallway who started yelling and screaming at us, he was swearing at us to hurry up," Cutting said.
"He started to get aggressive and I believe he was not far off physical violence."
The senior firefighter in charge of the scene, Clark Townsley, told the man to get out of the building, Cutting said.
On the third floor, Cutting said he had to crawl through low, hot smoke.
"It's completely pitch black, as if your eyes are closed. That dark, due to the smoke."
He was hearing on his radio that people were trapped in the building.
"I did not know where they were in relation to us," he said.
"I briefly stood up and could feel my ears burning through my PPE due to the extreme heat above us.
"This forced me back down onto the floor."
Eventually Cutting saw a "dull orange" through the smoke, which he believed to be flames.
His thermal imaging camera showed "extreme temperature" and he touched a locked door which was hot. He suspected there was fire behind it.
His colleague was spraying water on the smoke above them to try and ease the heat, while Cutting searched the space by hand for the people reportedly trapped.
"There was no one in this room."
The temperature had dropped thanks to the water and the crew tried to move forward, but "there was a lot of debris", Cutting said.
"I could not gather what this space was, it could have been a room or a hallway."
Cutting said he and his colleague tried to kick down the locked door, but could not, so he went to retrieve a tool to help with that and enable them to continue fighting the fire.
His testimony would continue on Tuesday.
Townsley earlier told the court when crews began reporting falling debris, the call was made to pull them out of the building because of the danger of a "flashover": materials spontaneously combusting, which could be fatal even for a "fully kitted" firefighter.
"Flashover made any chance of survival inside the floor highly unlikely," Townsley said.
Crews then began fighting the fire from outside the building. Those up high reported seeing intense fire and signs of structural collapse, Townsley said.
After the fire was under better control, they sent a crew back in, he said.
Firefighters found three people dead in the hallway of the third floor, the fire hose buried in rubble, and "obvious signs of collapse", Townsley said.
By that time the Urban Search and Rescue team had arrived and the bulk of the firefighting was complete, so the decision was made to pause work and plan the next stage of the operation.
Townsley said he was proud of the crew's efforts.
"Given what we arrived to and the resources we had, I believe we provided the best service we could.
"We saved a lot of lives that night."
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