CCTV captures possible arson

A shop owner says a suspicious fire outside his shop had the potential to take out an entire Invercargill CBD block.

Daily Needs Mini Mart owner Suhas Allumpurath Sukumaran was shocked to get a call from police early yesterday to say there had been a suspicious fire lit outside his Dee St shop.

Allumpurath Sukumaran had piled some boxes in a doorway next to his shop when he left work on Thursday night and at 1.30am those boxes were set alight.

Closed circuit TV footage from a camera pointing towards the doorway of the shop shows a group of people walking past.

Moments later, it appears one person from the group stopped to light the boxes in the doorway on fire before walking away again.

Flames took control and cracked windows at the shop before two fire crews arrived to put the fire out.

Allumpurath Sukumaran said if members of the public had not called the fire service, it had the potential to take over the block between Spey and Don streets.

‘‘Everything would have been gone in this whole row [of buildings]. The main switchboard for all the buildings was where the fire was. We are very lucky, everything would have been gone.’’

His initial reaction to news of the fire was fear given his family had worked hard to set up the business. There was concern about the estimated $100,000 of stock on site, he said.

There was also anger towards whoever the person was who appeared to have lit the fire.

‘‘[Our business] is a lifetime of savings for us. We can see on the camera he did it.’’

Mark Burton, who has owned the building for 15 years, said if the fire crews had arrived 15 minutes later the fire could have tuned into a major disaster for Invercargill.

‘‘I’m absolutely shocked and dumbfounded at the stupidity of these people. They didn’t know that there weren’t residents upstairs,’’ Burton said.

Smoke from the fire did seep into the shop, but firefighters were able to quickly ventilate the premises to ensure the smoke did not linger.

Invercargill City Council staff visited the shop yesterday for food safety reasons, and gave the owners the green light to open to the public again.

A police spokesperson confirmed they were investigating the fire.

‘‘The fire is suspected to be suspicious and police are making inquiries.’’