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It happened in the female section where 16 girls were being held. But, according to police, 3 of those girls were up to no good. Monica Bodden has more.

Monica Bodden Reporting
In 2007 the female dormitory at the Youth Hostel was renovated, with a lounge area including sofas and extended bedrooms - It was home sweet home for these young women.

But on Saturday evening - all that was destroyed - in the blink of an eye.

The entire concrete one story building was engulfed in flames.

It took almost 6 hours before fire fighters managed to control the blaze.It happened about 6:30 on Saturday evening.

Starla Bradley Acosta - Director -Youth Hostel
"The fire started at around 6 pm or a little there after on Saturday evening. The chief supervisor of the youth hostel called me to state that the female dormitory was on fire and that they had already called the police and the fire department. By the time we got up here a little after 7 pm the entire building was completely engulfed in flames already."

According to Acosta, by the time the fire department arrived, it was already too late:

Starla Bradley Acosta
"By the time the fire service got here they realized that they didn't have enough to manage the fire. So I think they called in a second truck. What apparently was explained to us is that one truck only holds 500 gallons of water and by the time they reached, the building was already fully ablaze."

17 residents along with their supervisor were inside the building at the time of the fire.

The fire is believed to have been started from the girl's bathroom.

Starla Bradley Acosta
"From what we know the fire started in the girls' bathroom. 17 female residents along with their supervisor was in the building at the time, they all escaped unharmed thankfully, because of the proximity of the two dormitories - the male dormitory is right next door, we are just thankful that the breeze was blowing in the other direction. Had it been blowing this way - the male dormitory probably would have been in trouble as well."

Today Acosta told us they is much speculation going around on what may have been the cause of the fire.

Starla Bradley Acosta
"There is a lot of speculation right now. We are still working with the Fire Department, they are still conducting their investigation and if it is found to be arson, our ministry plans to hand it over completely to the police so that action can be taken. Slowly we are getting bits and pieces of information, but when you are dealing with the population that we deal with, it will take some time to really iron out what exactly happened."

According to Police, 4 girls were in the bathroom of the female dorm smoking marijuana when they conspired to set the building on fire. One of the girls apparently placed a bed sheet in the man hole of the attic and lit it.

A disturbing act of delinquency and arson, but police say a 15-year old female minor has confessed to it.

Police investigators and members of the Fire Department are investigating the possible case of arson.

And for the meantime, the youth cadet corp which is right across the street from the Youth Hostel - has temporarily opened up one of their buildings to house the 17 residents.

Starla Bradley Acosta
"Yesterday we spent the entire day just looking after their safety, because we have to relocate them, making sure that they are safe and trying to find beds and supplies for them. Today we have our counseling team and they are doing debriefing sessions with both male and female residents because this of course was a traumatic experience. The girls are now more displaced and the whole fear of the situation... So right now we are just looking after the safety and mental health of our residents while we look at interim plans, where we will house them because we will have to replace this dorm."

Despite numerous attempts, we were unable to get any comment form the fire department.

Police and fire investigators are investigating it as a case of arson.