PARIS (AP) – A night watchman’s girlfriend has acknowledged that she could have accidentally started a deadly Paris hotel fire last week after lighting candles for a tryst in the breakfast room, authorities said Tuesday, while the death toll from the blaze rose to 24.

The woman, identified only as 31-year-old Fatima, was taken into custody Monday, three days after the Paris Opera hotel burned down.

The woman told criminal investigators that she “could be” at the origin of the fire that started shortly after 2 a.m. Friday in the second-floor breakfast room of the overcrowded, budget hotel, police and the prosecutor’s office said.

The prosecutor’s office announced that it was opening an investigation for “fire caused involuntarily, manslaughter and involuntary injuries.” It was not immediately known if Fatima would be freed after being placed under investigation – a step short of being charged.

The suspect told police that she went to the hotel to see her boyfriend, the night watchman, and put a dozen lit candles on the floor of the breakfast room.

But angered that he was drunk, she threw piles of clothes on the floor then left in a rage, with the candles still burning, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The night watchman, not identified by name, is the son of the hotel manager, Rachid Dekali, police have said. French press reports said that he is in a coma.

Officials, meanwhile, raised the death toll in the Friday fire at the budget hotel by two on Tuesday, putting it at 24. At least 11 of the dead were children. Of the injured, 27 people remained hospitalized, 14 in serious condition, officials said.

The nationalities of the dead have not been released, but the hotel in Paris’ 9th district housed mainly needy people, many of them Africans, who were placed there by social services.

The 32-room hotel was meant to accommodate 61 people, but at least 90 people were known to be living there.

Police originally suspected an accidental fire caused by a technical problem. The hotel’s fire prevention system had been checked March 24, and four recommendations to improve safety were issued, but the problems were insufficient to close down the hotel, police said.

Still, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said Sunday he plans to work quickly toward new measures to reinforce fire regulations, suggesting they could be ready within several weeks.

The fire has drawn protests from groups that defend immigrants’ rights and the need for correct housing for all. Bouquets of flowers stood propped up around the scorched hotel following a demonstration on Monday.