Families who fled their burning building after a suspected arson attack in the early hours of Saturday morning were last night still living there ? despite being told their homes were uninhabitable.

A dramatic blaze, believed to have been deliberately started, tore through the Leopards? Plaza housing block in Brunswick Street, Pembroke, just after 1 a.m, leaving several people injured.

Tenants of the former hotel escaped the blaze after being woken by fellow residents who saw smoke billowing from a second floor room. One couple had to tie bed sheets around their six-year-old daughter and lower her to the ground from their upstairs room.

Another man, who gave his name as Apples, told how he badly burnt his hands and feet as he crawled along a corridor to escape as flames lapped around him.

Some tenants claimed that they tried to use the building?s fire extinguishers and found them empty. But Denny Richardson, president of the Leopards? Club, which owns the block and rents out 11 of its rooms, said the extinguishers were regularly checked.

?It?s sabotage,? he claimed.

Lieutenant Dana Lovell, from Bermuda Fire Service, said two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus got the blaze under control in about 20 minutes.

But he said it caused extensive damage to the second floor and had made the building no longer safe for residents to live in. ?We would certainly be of the view that the building needs to be fixed before they go back in,? he said.

?We switched the electricity off as a matter of course because when fires break out the wires fall from the ceiling. With that wire in there that?s melted, it certainly poses a risk.?

Residents who talked to this newspaper on Saturday evening said they were desperate to return to their rooms, many having been outside since the early-morning drama and most claiming to have nowhere else to go.

Last night the electricity had been turned back on and some tenants were inside the block, planning to sleep for the second night running close to the burnt-out shell of a room where the fire started. They said they had no other option.

Some of those living at Leopards? Plaza believe a disgruntled woman told to leave the block by her ex-boyfriend may have started the fire.

Lt. Lovell said the cause was being investigated and that one possibility was that it was deliberately started. ?We have to consider every possible lead,? he said. ?We are investigating it. Suffice it to say that the investigation is ongoing.?

Police spokesman Robin Simmons added: ?It appears there are suspicious circumstances concerning the origin of the fire and the incident is under investigation.?

A 24-year-old who lives in the building said she was sitting in a communal area on the second floor when she saw smoke coming out of a room.

The woman, who would not be named, said the man whose room was burning tried to douse the flames but found that three fire extinguishers were empty.

?We didn?t have anything to put the fire out,? she said. ?I tried to help put the fire out first and then we went downstairs and called the other people.

?I went and called my momma and then came down here and called my sister. Upstairs was full of smoke. It was chaos. It was scary, real scary. I wasn?t even sure if everyone was going to get out. It was like a movie.?

Apples, 28, who lives on the second floor, said: ?I woke to screams saying ?get out?. I went to my door, opened my door and saw the smoke. I just dropped down low. I thought: ?I stay here and die or I go through the fire?.

?I felt the fire. Once I dropped down low that?s when I saw a lot of red. I thought that was it.

?I just made my way for the steps. I grabbed a fire extinguisher and there was nothing in it. After that I just came outside. I went to hospital.?

Apples said that when he returned from hospital his room had been ransacked and items were missing. The rest of his stuff had been blackened by smoke.

The couple whose daughter was lowered from a top floor window claimed their room was also ransacked and $1,500 in cash stolen.

The 33-year-old mother-of-two described black smoke billowing into her family?s one-room home after their smoke alarm woke them.

The father, 44, said he tied sheets around his six-year-old daughter and lowered her down to a man he did not know on the ground.

He said their other daughter, seven, was rescued by the man whose room was on fire. ?Anybody will tell you that those fire extinguishers weren?t full,? he said.

Police said a 45-year-old woman was treated at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital for first degree burns to her face and hands and released. Residents said another woman was also injured.

Mr. Richardson said he believed the fire started in a mattress which was then dragged into a hallway. ?It?s damaged the room, the ceiling in the hallway and the room next door. The whole upstairs is severely smoke damaged. It?s suspected that it?s arson but we can?t say that until we have got the forensics report.?

He said he did not think the block was habitable and the Leopards? Club was not prepared to take responsibility for people choosing to stay there.

Mr. Richardson added that the club wanted to pull down the building and that residents ? most of whom, he alleged, had not paid rent for a year ? had agreed to move out by the end of February.

He added: ?The fire extinguishers have always been up to scratch. I think the people feel that, because they have to move, they will find every excuse to blame somebody else except themselves.?

Mr. Richardson said it was up to Government?s Family Services department and other agencies to find accommodation for the families, whom he said had been warned to register with Bermuda Housing Corporation.

?Ask Social Services if they are prepared to put them up,? he said. ?This housing is not going to be available to them.

?The Leopards? Club shouldn?t have to take the responsibility for any risk. We would like to think that, given the acuteness of the situation, the agencies that take care of the poor would step in and assist.?

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Housing said last night: ?The Minister of Public Safety and Housing, Senator the Honourable Lieutenant Colonel David Burch, is keenly aware of the plight of the residents of the Leopards? Club. The Ministry is looking into the situation.?