The Savoy Hotel on Darlinghurst Road in the Kings Cross area of Sydney, Australia burned down on 25 December 1975 with the loss of 15 lives.
At about 5:00 a.m., Reginald John Lyttle, a 25-year-old cook and a petty thief with aspirations of making it into the news, came back from an unhappy night out.
Guests fled upstairs where they had a choice between jumping multiple floors down or waiting it out in smoke filled rooms.
[5] Convicted for 5 more arson cases, Little was at the low-security St Heliers prison farm where he served as a captain of a New South Wales country bush fire brigade.
He also owned the building next to it, then housing the Pink Panther strip club with upstairs a brothel called the Kingsdore Motel.