The Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel fire on 23 June 2000 killed 15 backpackers nine women and six men at the former Palace Hotel in the town of Childers, Queensland, Australia, which had been converted into a backpacker hostel. Robert Paul Long was arrested for lighting the fire and charged with two counts of murder and one count of arson. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment. Incident The fire started shortly before 12:30 am, in the downstairs recreation room and quickly spread up the walls and into the stairwell. Survivors recounted how smoke quickly filled the area and the building’s power was lost. In the darkness, and in the absence of alarms and emergency lighting, some attempted to waken and rescue as many others as they could. The first emergency call, from a pay phone across the street, was logged at 12:31. Emergency services first arrived at 12:38 then spent four hours battling the fire before it was fully extinguished. The Isis Shire Mayor, Bill Trevor, told reporters that the hostel was not razed to the ground, and that victims either got out alive or did not get out at all. Victims There were 88 people staying in the building at the time out of a potential total occupancy of 101. Of the 70 guests who survived the fire, 10 suffered minor burns and injuries as they tried to escape from the upper level and by jumping onto the roofs of neighbouring buildings. Of the 15 who died in the fire, seven were British; three were Australian; two were from the Netherlands; and one each from Ireland, Japan, and South Korea. Identification of the deceased was hampered due to an incomplete hostel register that recorded check-ins but not departures, and because most of the residents' passports were destroyed or damaged by the fire. DNA samples were also difficult to obtain for those with no relatives in Australia. Most of the backpackers who died were on the first floor of the hostel. Through an inquest, it was found that in one of the upper rooms where 10 victims were found (i.e. all of that room’s occupants), a bunk bed blocked a fastened exit door and the windows were barred. Perpetrator Robert Paul Long, a fruit picker, had moved into the hostel on 24 March 2000 but had been evicted on 14 June over $200 in rent arrears. ATM records showed that