Two fires broke out at exactly the same time in two buildings at the New Somerset hospital in Cape Town on Friday morning, emergency officials said.
Officials suspect they were started on purpose.
”For two fires to occur on the same complex within a short period is a million-to-one chance. The matron also heard someone scuffling around in the records room,” said William Nicholl of Cape Town’s emergency services.
He said the fires were put out within 20 minutes of firefighters arriving on the scene. No one was injured.
However, one of the fires was in a records room and a large quantity of records were destroyed.
The other fire was in a disused nurses’ home.
The fires started shortly before 4am in the morning. Nicholl said he suggested to hospital management that they ask the police to investigate.
”This is a case of suspected incendiarism,” he said.
He explained that with incendiarism, unlike with arson when people light fires to get money, ”a fire is set alight for no particular gain at all”.
He said no petrol or fuel was used to light the fire: ”They just used paper.” — Sapa