Ambulance destroyed by fire outside Tasmanian hospital

An ambulance was destroyed in a fire at a hospital on Tasmania's west coast on Wednesday night. No one was injured in the blaze, which has been deemed accidental. What's next? A replacement ambulance has been deployed to the remote town, but the health union has called for a further investigation. An ambulance caught fire on Tasmania's west coast on Wednesday night, destroying it and slightly damaging the exterior of the region's hospital. A Department of Health spokesperson said the ambulance was parked outside the West Coast District Hospital at Queenstown. "The ambulance was unoccupied at the time of the fire, and no patients or staff were injured or harmed," they said. Loading... The hospital itself was also largely unaffected, aside from some "minor damage to some exterior lights". They said a replacement ambulance has been deployed to Queenstown. The Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management said an investigation had concluded the fire started accidentally, and there were no suspicious circumstances. Robbie Moore, state secretary of the Health and Community Services Union, said the Department of Health needed to conduct its own "transparent" investigation. "We are obviously relieved that nobody was injured in this incident," Mr Moore said. "[But] there does need to be a full investigation to see that all the safety procedures are in place … as well as work out exactly how this happened. "I'm certainly not aware of an incident similar to this." He said the union understood that "things happen from time to time", but staff and patients deserved "full transparency" to understand what occurred. "These things in a health setting are complex … and measures need to be taken to make sure that things like this don't occur again." Further comment has been sought from the Department of Health.