Brookvale: Victims of the Rent A Space storage fire may soon have answers about cause of blaze
Customers of a Brookvale storage facility, who had treasured personal goods destroyed or damaged in last year’s fire, are hoping to find out what caused the blaze.
Manly
Don't miss out on the headlines from Manly. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Northern beaches P-plater drove drunk at 165km/h
- STREETWATCH: Police and emergency services in your suburb
The NSW Coroner’s Court has started reviewing the devastating fire at the Rent A Space self-storage facility at Brookvale.
But it could still be weeks before the 550 customers who had treasured goods stored in the Cross St complex get answers to what caused the multimillion-dollar blaze.
A spokesman for the Coroner’s office said a file about the fire, which started on March 28 last year and burned for four days, was being reviewed by the Coroner.
The file includes a Fire Report prepared by a detective attached to the Northern Beaches Police Area Command.
A well as sudden, unexpected or unexplained deaths and suspected deaths, the Coroner also ensures that major fires and explosions are properly investigated.
“This file is still being reviewed by the Coroner,” a spokesman said.
He said that while the date of the review was given as April 16, 2020, a decision might not given by the Coroner on the review date.
“It is dependent on workload and complexity.”
The spokesman said that the matter would only go to an inquiry “if the cause and/or origin of the fire was not known”.
The fire destroyed the main building, containing 290 lockers, at the complex.
About 260 lockers were accommodated in three other buildings that were not impacted directly by fire, but the contents of many were damaged by heat, smoke and water.
Customers were told by Rent A Space management last year that they would have to pay up to $2000 to have their stored possessions — if they survived the fire — decontaminated because there was an asbestos roof on the premises.
Those customers who did not pay to have items treated for mould, and cleaned of soot and char caused by the fire had their goods taken to a secure landfill site, out of reach of scavengers.
Customers were frustrated that they were not allowed to check their lockers to retrieve potentially undamaged family possessions.
Rent A Space said last year that as part of a Northern Beaches Council clean-up order, the stored items had to be decontaminated, for safety reasons, before they could be salvaged.
It said that much of the costs would be covered by customers’ insurance.
In a statement a Rent A Space spokesman said while it could not comment on issues due to the Coronial inquiry, it did say: “(It) facilitated an extensive process to enable customers to recover their goods and all customers who elected to do so have now recovered their goods.”