Police want to speak with three youths who were spotted trying to break in to an historic Dunedin building shortly before it was gutted by fire.
About 30 firefighters were called to the blaze in a 130-year-old building on Jetty Street at around 1.40am yesterday.
Two witnesses reported
seeing three male youths attempting to break in using bolt cutters at about 7.30pm on Saturday.
They did not contact police until the day after the building had burned down.
Detective Trevor Thomson said despite the obvious sinister overtones, the break-in attempt may be a "red herring" as it was hours before the fire broke out.
A fire investigation team was heading in today with hopes of finding out more over the next couple of days.
Mr Thomson said the fire was being treated as unexplained rather than suspicious because at this point no natural cause had been established.
"It's going to be very hard to say what's caused it, and that's why it's hard to say if it's suspicious.
"We know where it started but we don't know how because it's started below where they store cars so there's lots of oil and fuel and car parts above it. There's lots of contamination."
A dance studio, storage area, businesses and apartments in the building were lost.
No occupants were in the building when the fire started.
- NZPA
