National Fire Authority’s Levuka Fire station received a running call at 12.30am about a property fire at the old Levuka Hospital located between the new Levuka Hospital and the hospital mortuary.

 The duty team of four firefighters as well as seven off-duty fire officers arrived at the scene to find the four-room vacant wooden heritage building fully engulfed in flames.

 Using a fire appliance with a 3000-litre tank capacity the crew established 1 delivery of 4 lengths from tank supply to put out the fire and stop it from spreading to the nearby new hospital and mortuary, which were very closely located to the old hospital. 

 Being a wooden building and fanned by a sea breeze, the fire spread rapidly causing the four patients at the new hospital to be evacuated to Levuka Vakaviti Village nearby.

 The fire spread was so rapid and intense that the fire crew focused on containing the fire and preventing its spread to the new hospital and mortuary, which were also wooden buildings and in very close proximity.    

 By 12.56am the duty crew managed to extinguish the fire with support from their tank supply, but the heritage building was completely destroyed.

 No injuries or fatalities were reported.

 NFA CEO Puamau Sowane said: “We would like to acknowledge the great work by the NFA team in Levuka and for their skillfulness in successfully preventing the fire from spreading to the new hospital and mortuary. 

 “We also acknowledge with sincere gratitude the strong networking and collaboration between the service agencies in Levuka, which prevented a potential catastrophe in the old capital. 

 “This was displayed during the fire incident and we acknowledge the timely and valued assistance of the officers from the Fiji Corrections Services and the Water Authority for their quick action in boosting the water pressure to the nearest fire hydrant, which helped the fire team to consistently fight the fire and extinguish it quickly and stopped its devastating spread to the nearby buildings. 

“We also acknowledge the assistance of the Police officers, staff from PAFCO, staff from the Ministry of Health and security officers from the nearby Levuka Club who helped the NFA fire team during the incident.”

 Mr Sowane added that history and heritage are very important to our society. 

 “It is also important for heritage-listed building owners in Levuka and likewise other areas in Fiji, to ensure that their properties are compliant with fire safety requirements and not left vacant or abandoned,” he said. 

 “They must ensure that if such properties are vacant then they must have security guards to secure them.  The property in question is a heritage-listed building and the onus is on the property owners to ensure they adhere to the guidelines laid down for the conservation, monitoring, protection and management of heritage-listed properties.”

 Fire investigations will soon be conducted to determine the cause of the fire.

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