{"id":234852,"date":"2026-01-15T16:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/234852\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T16:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:14:11","slug":"call-for-public-help-over-destructive-scout-hall-blaze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/234852\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for public help over destructive scout hall blaze"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fire investigators are calling for public help as they probe the massive blaze which destroyed the\u00a0Roslyn Scout Hall. Firefighters worked into the night to fully extinguish a large fire that engulfed the hall, in School St, yesterday.<\/p>\n

Police detectives have today been conducting a scene examination alongside with a fire investigator to determine the cause, Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond, of Dunedin, said.<\/p>\n

Police inquiries would include speaking to any witnesses.<\/p>\n

Snr Sgt Bond said if anybody had seen anyone acting suspicious in the area, they should report what they saw to 105.<\/p>\n

The Fire and Emergency investigator wanted\u00a0to hear from anyone who took photos or video of the early stages of the fire, a spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s also interested in security camera or dashcam footage from School St taken between 3pm and 4pm yesterday.”<\/p>\n

Photos or video could be emailed to Roslynfirephotos2026@fireandemergency.nz<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Multiple appliances, including an aerial unit, tackled the fire yesterday.<\/p>\n

Firefighters were first alerted to the blaze after a Roslyn crew coming back from another call-out saw the billowing smoke on their way back to base at 3.35pm.<\/p>\n

When they arrived at the fire, flames could be seen, prompting a call for further appliances from Lookout Point, St Kilda and Willowbank to attend, a Fire and Emergency New Zealand spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n

She said the two-level building was \u2018\u2018fully involved\u2019\u2019, but there was not believed to be anyone inside.<\/p>\n

Fire fighting continued into the night and a heavy digger was bought in to demolish the front of the building to expose hotspots and remaining areas of fire.<\/p>\n

This morning, firefighters were still on scene dampening down the site.<\/p>\n

The hall, which was over 100 years old, was basically empty, had no power connected and was tinder dry.<\/p>\n

Scout leader Shaun Adie said vandalism was commonplace.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018Young kids just smash in windows. Just breaking into it all the time. You try and fix things, but they just come back and do some more.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

laine.priestley@odt.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire investigators are calling for public help as they probe the massive blaze which destroyed the\u00a0Roslyn Scout Hall.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-234852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}