Woman admits causing Paris fire

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7554389/

Police: Woman admits causing Paris fire

Hotel blaze killed 23, half of them childrenMSNBC News Services

Updated: 8:16 a.m. ET April 19, 2005PARIS - A woman detained in connection with a fire that killed 23 people at a budget hotel in Paris last week admitted that she started the blaze by accident, police said Tuesday.

“A young woman admitted she had accidentally caused this fire,” a police source told Reuters.

The woman was taken into custody Monday, three days after the Paris Opera hotel burned down. She was identified by judicial officials as the girlfriend of one of the hotel’s night watchmen.

The woman, not identified by name, acknowledged starting the fire accidentally, police said without providing details.

Hospital officials on Tuesday said another man had died as a result of the blaze, raising the death toll to 23.

The overcrowded hotel in Paris’ 9th district housed mostly people in need, many of them African, who were placed there by social services.

The 32-room hotel was meant to accommodate 61 people, but at least 90 people were known to be living there.

Judicial officials said Monday that the woman had been detained for questioning over her whereabouts at the time of the blaze, which occurred shortly after 2 a.m. Friday.

The manager of the hotel, also not identified by name, was questioned Sunday, two days after the fire.

Hours after the fire, which devastated the hotel, firefighters speculated that it had started accidentally in a breakfast room. The prosecutors office opened an investigation for manslaughter. The exact origin of the blaze was not immediately known.

Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said Sunday that he plans to work quickly toward new measures to reinforce fire regulations. He said experts had been asked for proposals and that the matter should be handled within several weeks.

The hotel’s fire prevention system had been checked March 24, and four recommendations to improve safety were issued, but the measures were insufficient to close down the hotel, police said.