A huge fire which ripped through an empty Dunfermline town centre building on Sunday is still “unexplained” as police say they want to trace a group of up to five youths seen leaving the building just hours earlier.
The police are looking for the gang of young people, possibly in their 20s, seen leaving the derelict Thomsons World of Furniture store complex three hours before the fire was discovered on Sunday evening.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector David McLaren, said the force was still treating the fire as unexplained.
The investigation into the blaze, which could be seen for miles around, was moving slowly on Monday.
Mr McLaren said, “Due to the damage caused to the building, efforts to establish the cause of the fire remain under investigation.
He appealed for anyone who may have been in the area on Sunday evening to come forward.
In particular, officers are keen to speak to a group of between three and five young people male and female seen in the area at the time.
He said they were seen leaving the building, which has been empty since the furniture company moved to a new building in Halbeath several years ago, at about 5pm.
The fire was discovered just after 8pm and raged through the derelict warehouse adjoining the former Thomsons World of Furniture shop for around six hours.
At its height, Fife Fire and Rescue Service had eight units from Dunfermline, Lochgelly, Glenrothes, Kirkcaldy and Burntisland, along with two height appliances fighting the blaze.
Its command and control unit was also there as the police closed roads and set up diversions.
Some 50 firefighters were involved in bringing the fire under control, tackling it from all four sides of the sprawling 110m by 75m warehouse unit on Winterthur Lane, behind the empty shop fronting Bruce Street.
Iain Vincent, Fife Fire and Rescue Service group manager operations, paid tribute to the teamwork involved in ensuring the fire did not spread into the shop.
“The fire was in the massive building to the rear of the shop, but it was heading rapidly towards the shop front,” he said.
“Our priority was to stop the fire spreading and we were successful with that.”
The main damage was to the face of the building looking on to Carnegie Drive.
“There are 12 roof pitches within the building, and we managed to stop the fire around about the fifth.
“Five roofs were damaged and an area of approximately 70m by 20m was completely destroyed by the fire,” he added.
Mr Vincent said the fire had been a serious incident for the fire service.
“It utilised a lot of our resources. However, our resources coped very well,” he said.
Building inspectors and structural engineers were on site assessing the property’s safety on Monday.
The entire site is earmarked for a Tesco supermarket.
Dunfermline area committee councillors gave the green light to develop the area as a new 60,000 square foot store which it is hoped would generate around 500 jobs in May 2008.
Work was expected to start soon, with the building work taking around nine months to complete, to have the store open by next summer.
Fife Fire and Rescue confirmed an investigation will be carried out.
Due to the precarious nature of the building, fire crew and police officers deemed it too unsafe to carry out an inspection.
Evidence will be gathered from CCTV cameras, along with information from fire officers, to try to establish what caused the fire.