Police confirm no deaths or injuries in Tuesday night inferno

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Nobody was killed on injured in a large house fire at the heritage listed Abel Smith St building on Tuesday night, police have confirmed. Police had previously been unable to determine whether any bodies were inside, as the building was considered too structurally unsound for investigators to enter. Police entered the building on Wednesday night after completing a partial demolition.

Abel Smith St between Willis St and SH1, and a section of The Terrace from Abel Smith St to Buller St were closed after 5pm to allow the demolition to go ahead and were expected to remain closed overnight. Despite being officially abandoned, the house at 128 Abel Smith St was a frequent haunt of squatters, and had been broken into just days before the fire.

The building is owned by the Lebanese Society. Serena Moran, from the group, told Stuff there had been a couple of break-ins in the past fortnight and it appeared people had slept there. After the break-ins were reported to police the house was boarded up over the weekend to stop people getting in. The house, which was too hard to insure, was in such a state of disrepair it was deemed no longer safe for people to live there.

A neighbour said squeegee bandits, a group of people who washed car windows for tips at the nearby intersection had been seen entering the house in recent weeks. Another neighbour, Emily Fitzmaurice, confirmed a house next door to the fire was also badly damaged. The owners were called to the house on Tuesday night.

Fire crews remained at the scene all day Wednesday assisting with the investigation into the cause of the fire. Firefighters flew a drone over the house on Wednesday morning to get a better look at the fire scene. Emergency services were called to the 120 year old house, the former home of Wellington's anarchist movement, near the corner of SH1 at 6.10pm on Tuesday.

Plumes of grey smoke billowed across central Wellington as firefighters tackled the large blaze for about 2½ hours on Tuesday night. As many as 12 fire trucks were at the scene of the fire, which was put out at 8.30pm on Tuesday.

The building had most recently been the Radical Social Centre & Community Whare, a community centre which was home to more than 30 activist organisations and charities, including Peace Action Wellington, People Against Prisons and Gender Minorities Aotearoa. In 2017, Wellington’s Lebanese community restored the Lebanese Society to its former membership and eventually, in 2019, took over the premises again.