Firefighters have confirmed that one person has lost their life and five more are in hospital after a fire overwhelmed a Newtown boarding house on Tuesday morning.
Emergency services are waiting for the building to be marked safe, so they can enter and search the home for four potential residents that remain unaccounted for.
“Being a boarding house, we are not too sure who lived there and who was home,” Fire and Rescue NSW Superintendent Adam Dewberry told 2GB.
“The building is pretty unstable and we are concerned of a collapse”.
The person who died has yet to be formally identified by police.
More than 30 firefighters responded to reports of a fire in Newtown around 1am this morning.
They arrived on the scene to find a “very inxjmtzywtense flames” coming out of the first and second levels of a boarding house on the corner of Probert St and Albemarle St.
Witnesses have described seeing one resident jump out of a second-storey window to escape the flames.
Firefighters worked quickly to contain the flames that were already touching adjoining properties.
A number of residents lined the streets having made the decision to evacuate their homes in the early hours of the morning and paramedics treated some at the scene.
The flames have now been extinguished by firefighters but due to the extreme heat of the blaze, emergency services are waiting on standby in case fire reignites.
NSW Police have established a crime scene and are investigating the circumstances that led to the fire.
