A 24 year old Irishman is critically ill in a Sydney hospital with severe burns after fire broke out in the two storey house in central Sydney where he was living.
New South Wales Police told The Irish Times last night that they could not release the name of the young man as he had not been positively identified yet.
A 31 year old English man died in the fire after raising the alarm and rescuing the rest of the occupants.
A police spokesman said it was a two storey house in central Sydney: four of the occupants were sleeping upstairs and the Irishman was sleeping downstairs. "The Englishman was apparently the first to wake and he knocked on the doors to wake the occupants. They got out on to the balcony and were saved, but he perished. He was overcome by the blaze.
"The Irishman was found downstairs, crouching on all fours and seriously burned. He is now in hospital and is in serious condition. His parents are coming over to see if it is their son," a police spokesman said.