At least four men attended the Chapel Street venue shortly before 1.50am and forced their way into the premises, using accelerant to set it alight before leaving the area. About 50 firefighters and 15 fire trucks were called to battle the blaze at LUX Nightclub.
Within minutes of the first call, the top area of the nightclub was fully involved in fire and it was starting to come out through the roof space, according to Fire Rescue Victoria's Mitch Simons. A smoke warning was issued for local residents and it took crews two hours to bring the fire under control.
The first floor bar was burnt out and its roof rendered a mess of twisted metal. The club is above a Westpac bank and boutique store, which also suffered damage. No one was injured as the club was closed at the time.
Video footage captured the moment the attack unfolded. Three masked men carrying red jerry cans were filmed entering and leaving the building, with the men pouring accelerant onto the footpath as they left. At least one of the people involved sustained burn injuries as a result of lighting the fire.
Police are continuing to treat the fire as suspicious and believe it was a targeted attack, however the exact motivation for the arson remains unclear. Investigators have been through thousands of hours of CCTV in an effort to trace a blue VW golf sedan, which was seen at the nightclub fire and is believed to have been initially stolen from the driveway of a property in Croydon on 12 November last year.
The vehicle is believed to have been involved in a number of other incidents across Melbourne including several aggravated burglaries and petrol drive offs in Brunswick, Cranbourne North, Caulfield South and Hampton. Detectives from the Arson and Explosives Squad arrested two people in their investigation into the suspicious fire: a 22-year-old Pakenham man and a 21-year-old Pakenham man.
The 22-year-old has been charged with criminal damage by fire, burglary, use dangerous article, theft of motor vehicle x 3 and traffic offences. He was remanded into custody to appear before the Melbourne Magistrates' Court.
There is nothing at all to indicate that the men arrested were directly involved in the synagogue fire, or that the fire at the nightclub was a political attack.