LONDON - Detectives said on Wednesday they had arrested two men in connection with a fire, believed to have been started deliberately, which gutted a hotel in Cornwall last summer leaving three people dead.

Teacher Peter Hughes, 43, his mother Monica, 86, and Joan Harper, 80, all from Staffordshire, were killed in the fire that destroyed the Penhallow Hotel in the holiday resort of Newquay.

On Tuesday, Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Boarland of Devon and Cornwall Police said they had concluded the fire was started deliberately and was being treated as a murder investigation.

Officers have now arrested two men, aged 44 and 21, on suspicion of murder. They are being questioned at police stations in Cornwall.

More than 100 firefighters battled to control the blaze which engulfed the building late on a Saturday night in August, fanned by high winds. It was Britain's worst hotel fire for over 30 years.

Peter Hughes died after falling from a window on an upper floor of the tall hotel, which formed part of an Edwardian-era terrace. He had been trying to save his mother's life.