Five month old girl injured in "deliberate" house fire

February 27, 2006

A five-month-old girl is in a critical but stable condition in Sydney's Westmead Children's Hospital after receiving burns to 11 percent of her body in a house fire. The fire broke out at around 2am Sunday in the Department of Housing property in Kelso, a suburb of Bathurst, NSW, Australia.

Police and fire crews were called to the house after a neighbour reported seeing the fire and four men, described as being of "Aboriginal" appearance, running from the area.

Police said that the five-month-old girl and her twin sister were sleeping in a front room when the fire broke out. The twins' parents rescued their children and fled before flames engulfed the entire house.

Inspector Chris Davey said police thought the fire may have been deliberate and had spent Sunday gathering evidence at the scene. "We're treating the fire as being deliberately lit at this point in time - we have investigators on the ground trying to identify four males seen to be leaving that area," he said.