Four people were killed and three injured late Sunday night in a suspected arson fire at an apartment in Nagoya, police officials said Monday.

Police and firefighters look through a burned-out Nagoya apartment building where four people died.

Police believe three of the four killed were members of a family that lived in the second-floor apartment house "Ikeshita-so." They were identified as Suehiro Nomura, 44, his wife Hiroko, 39, and their 13-year-old daughter Hitomi.

The identity of the fourth victim, found in a first-floor apartment, has been confirmed as Nomura's 37-year-old brother, Haruo.

Four fires, including the apartment fire, broke out within 4 km of each other between 10:30 and 11:40 p.m. Sunday in Nagoya's Moriyama Ward, and investigators are looking into possible connections.

They are also looking into a possible link with 10 unsolved fires that occurred in the ward on Aug. 28, Aug. 30 and Oct. 14.

Neighboring Kita and Higashi wards have also seen a spate of recent suspected arson fires. Aichi police suspect one person set all of the fires.

During some of those fires, an unidentified man broadcast messages accusing local firefighting authorities of being "tax money thieves" on their closed radio communications system, police said.

Four families had rental contracts with the landlord of the apartment in Sunday's fatal blaze, but only three of them lived in the building on a regular basis. The first-floor unit where the fire is believed to have started was being rented to a woman in her 60s who was using the room to store cardboard.

The building is located in a residential area some 150 meters north of Nagoya Railroad Co.'s Kitayama Station.