Palace Hotel fire - Childers, Qld, Australia
Posted by: 
blingg
S 25° 14.195 E 152° 16.730
56J E 427365 N 7208660
Fifteen young backpackers lost their lives when their hostel on the state's central coast was set alight.
Waymark Code: WM12C63
Location: Queensland, Australia
Date Posted: 04/25/2020
Views: 1
The former Palace Hotel in Childers had been converted into a backpacker hostel and was popular with backpackers who were doing fruit-picking work on farms in the area.
On 23 June, 2000 an itinerant fruit picker, Robert Long, who had a pathological hatred of backpackers and who had recently been removed from the hostel, started a fire in the downstairs recreation room at the Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel which killed a total of 15 backpackers - nine women and six men.
The building was destroyed and subsequently rebuilt in honour of the 15 backpackers who died in the fire. Upstairs, in the Art Gallery, are two remarkable art works commemorating those who died. One is a single 7.7 metre long piece of glass with the short, personal histories of each of the victims featured through photographs and mementoes, another is an oil painting by Josonia Palaitis entitled "Taking a Break in the Field" which depicted all fifteen of the people killed in postures which captured exactly the photographs their families had lent for the painting
Type of Structure: Public building
Construction Date: 01/01/1902
Fire Date: 06/23/2000
Structure status: Still standing building
Cause of Fire:
Arson
Documentation of the fire: [Web Link]
Other: Not listed
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