Remember when: The Gold Coast and nation left in shock by the Childers backpackers fire

PLEASE find out why was the simple message from a stunned nation following the Childers fire which claimed the lives of 15 people in 2000

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Weekend Bulletin 2000, June 24-25. Front page.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Saturday June 24 2000

PLEASE find out why was the simple message from a stunned nation following the Childers fire.

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Weekend Bulletin 2000, June 24-25. Front page.

Police suspected arson was to blame for the state’s worst fire disaster in which 15 people perished at a Childers backpackers hostel.

Several survivors told of a disgruntled man who had threatened to return and burn down the two-storey building.

He warned several female guests to leave their windows and doors open.

Senior police confirmed to media they had received information that a week earlier a backpacker had ``gone feral’’ at The Palace Backpackers Hostel, a converted then-98-year-old hotel in the historic township, 315km north of Brisbane.

The fire was believed to have started in the kitchen or the television room at the rear of the ground floor.

All the fatalities occurred on the top floor accommodation wing, where people were asleep in bedrooms directly above the seat of the fire.

It was believed many guests died of smoke inhalation.

All 25 people sleeping downstairs escaped to safety with the dead scattered throughout the labyrinth of rooms on the top floor.

Shocked survivors who escaped out of windows and scrambled across the roofs of adjoining buildings said they did not hear smoke alarms sound.

Robert Long was later arrested by police.

In 2002 Long was found guilty of two charges of murder and arson and sentenced to life in jail.