In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the cause of the blaze at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) St Joseph head­quar­ters have stalled be­cause of a re-ig­ni­tion of the fire on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

Fire Ser­vices sources said yes­ter­day fire of­fi­cers were un­able to en­ter the main build­ing at the ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex on Wednes­day to con­duct in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

As a re­sult, the cause of the fire re­mains un­known. Sources, how­ev­er, dis­missed claims that a de­vice set to go off at a par­tic­u­lar time was dis­cov­ered at the scene of the fire.

The Fire Ser­vices source al­so quashed ru­mours that im­por­tant files kept in the reg­istry area of the sec­ond floor where the fire start­ed were de­stroyed. He said the fire took place in a "large area" but not in the records sec­tion as re­port­ed.

De­spite spec­u­la­tion that the fire may be linked to an up­com­ing au­dit of the au­thor­i­ty, the source said its ori­gin re­mained un­known up to this point.

The fire broke out on Tues­day af­ter­noon and was con­tained by fire of­fi­cers short­ly af­ter 7 pm. How­ev­er, of­fi­cers were called back to WASA af­ter the fire re-ig­nit­ed. The source said a cer­tain amount of heat in the area restart­ed the blaze.

"The area is not safe and in­ves­ti­ga­tors are yet to de­ter­mine the cause of the fire be­cause they are try­ing to as­sess from the out­side if the build­ing is safe. We have to en­sure that the area is safe for the in­ves­ti­ga­tors," one of­fi­cer told the T&T Guardian.

WASA's com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Daniel Plen­ty yes­ter­day con­firmed the source of the fire was yet to be de­ter­mined. As for an up­date on in­ves­ti­ga­tions, he said that was the Fire Ser­vices' re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Plen­ty al­so with­held com­ment on claims the fire was ma­li­cious­ly set.

Camille Clarke andYvonne Ba­boolal