Alfredton unit where Simon Scarff died in fire lacked smoke alarm despite property inspections

A coroner has found that an Alfredton unit where a man died in a fire had no smoke alarm despite inspections by a Ballarat real estate agent and the property owner’s claims one was previously installed.

The Alfredton property where Simon Scarff died in a fire. Photo: The Ballarat News

A unit where an Alfredton man died in a house fire had no smoke alarm, despite several inspections by a Ballarat real estate agent and the property owner’s claims an alarm was previously installed.

Simon Peter Scarff, 52, died in a house fire at his unit at 1/13 Almurta St in Alfredton on February 12, 2022.

In findings released in late October this year, Coroner Paul Lawrie found that at 6.21am that day, Mr Scarff phoned triple-0 and yelled ‘I can’t get out’, but the nature of his predicament and his location was unclear to the responder.

Mr Scarff’s billing address placed him at Victoria Park in Sebastopol, whereas a GPS inquiry put him at his leased unit on Almurta St.

A police officer ended the telephone call and did not dispatch any emergency services as the GPS data was considered insufficient on its own, and no fire was mentioned during the call.

Additionally, there was no sound of a smoke alarm on the recorded triple-0 call.

“With the information I had I was unable to dispatch units as they would be looking for an unknown male with an unknown situation,” the officer said.

Emergency services found the front room of Mr Scarff’s unit “well alight”. Photo: The Ballarat News

About 11 minutes after Mr Scarff made his call, a member of the public phoned about the fire, and Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria, and Fire Rescue Victoria became involved.

They were informed that a call had been received earlier, possibly from Mr Scarff, about his being trapped.

Emergency services found on arrival that the front room of the house and a vehicle parked outside the front door were “well alight”, Coroner Lawrie’s findings said, and flames were coming out of windows.

The fire was under enough control by 6.43am that firefighters could approach the front door, behind which they found Mr Scarff’s body.

The premises were declared a crime scene.

An autopsy revealed Mr Scarff had soot in his airways; his official cause of death was deemed “effects of fire”.

Forensic investigators found that a small bolt-lock on the door was locked at the time of the fire and that there was a plugged-in string of three power boards in the loungeroom.

These “piggy backed” and “patently unsafe” power boards were deemed by Coroner Lawrie as one of several possible sources of ignition, along with distilling equipment which was close to a couch and curtains, or a smouldering cigarette.

The position in which Mr Scarff was found indicated he might have been trying to escape out of the front door, but was overcome with smoke.

Coroner Lawrie found the triple-0 responder “managed the call appropriately” by trying for more than five minutes to have Mr Scarff answer simple questions, and that the police officer who took over also made a “reasonable decision” not to dispatch emergency services.

Investigators found “piggy backed” power boards at Mr Scarff’s unit that might have started the fire. Photo: Himangi Singh

Smoke alarms

Ballarat Real Estate’s Adrian Faulkner, who completed an entry condition report for Mr Scarff’s unit on December 17, 2019, said he could not remember whether he saw a smoke alarm, but thought he “would have sighted one” because he crossed a box on the document.

Mr Scarff did not sign Mr Faulkner’s entry condition report, and a ‘date of last smoke alarm test’ section in the document was unfilled.

A section on the condition of smoke alarms had only a typed reference, saying ‘fitted’.

In two years, 97 photographs were taken at the property over five separate inspections, and none of them showed a smoke detector.

A police fire investigator told the court she was “confident” there was not a working smoke alarm in the unit before the fire.

Provisions about smoke alarms added to the Residential Tenancies Act in 2021 did not apply to Mr Scarff as he began his lease before their application, and at the time of the fire he was on a month-to-month tenancy.

His real estate agent was therefore not required to ensure alarms were correctly installed and in working condition.

A police investigator told the court she was “confident” Mr Scarff’s unit did not have a working alarm at the time of the fire.

Nevertheless, the Victorian Building Authority advised the court that in such cases it was the property owner’s obligation to install a smoke alarm in accordance with building regulations.

The owner of the premises, a man named Peter Dawes, emailed the court and said he “visually sighted and tested all smoke alarms” in each of the four units after buying them, and that alarms remained in the three unburnt units.

He provided four photos, but one of them was of the distilling equipment referred to by forensic officers in Mr Scarff’s home.

The other three were of a smoke alarm on a ceiling, but Coroner Lawrie said a “close examination” favoured the idea that those three photos showed the same single alarm.

The photo file names also indicated the pictures were taken on September 27, 2023.

The findings said a police officer had in fact attended the units on December 16, 2022 and found a single smoke alarm fitted in Unit 4, while Unit 3 appeared to have had an alarm installed previously.

The photos he took of the one smoke alarm in Unit 4 appeared “very similar” to those sent to the court by Mr Dawes.

“I find that, at the time of the fire, there was no smoke alarm installed in the premises despite being required pursuant to the Building Regulations 2018,” Coroner Lawrie said.

He recommended changes to the legislation so that safety-related rules pursuant upon residential rental providers would apply to tenancy agreements before March 29, 2021.