SYDNEY - The trial of an itinerant fruit picker accused of setting a fire in an Australian hostel that killed 15 backpackers, including six britons, begins on Monday.

The trial starts 20 months after the night-time blaze ripped through the 100-year-old wooden palace backpackers' hostel in Childers, 300km (185 miles) north of the Queensland capital Brisbane, and will last about six weeks, court officials said.

Defendant Robert Long, 38, pleaded not guilty at his committal hearing to three specimen charges -- two for the murders of west Australian twins Kelly and Stacey Slarke and one for arson, for setting the fire on June 23, 2000.

He has not been charged with the deaths of the six Britons, two other Australians, one Irish national, two Dutch travellers, a South Korean and a Japanese national because he already faces a maximum life sentence.

Police say long confessed to setting the fire when he was tracked down in the bush by police dogs and arrested.

Long was shot in the shoulder by an officer after a struggle in which he allegedly stabbed another policeman in the jaw.

"I'm dying -- I started that fire," he said, before lapsing into unconsciousness, the police officers told his committal hearing.

Witnesses at the hearing said long had told people he was suffering from cancer and did not have long to live, and prison cellmates said he admitted blocking the hostel's emergency exits.

**** Trial Transferred Due to Bias ****

The trial, which was transferred from the provincial town of Bundaberg to Brisbane after locals were quoted as saying he should be "tied to a stake and burned alive", begins as childers finally gets around to bulldozing the hostel's remains.

The site will be turned into a new building featuring a memorial, an art gallery, shops and a large public plaza leading to a new 120-bed hostel for young travelers.

The memorial will include a painting of the 15 fire victims.

"After so much heartache, it's great to see work commence to build a fitting memorial to the lives of those backpackers," Isis Shire Mayor Bill Trevor told the Australian Associated Press this week.

The tropical Queensland coast, close to the great barrier reef in northeastern Australia, is a popular destination on the backpacker circuit of this vast island continent.

Many of the budget travelers who used to stay at the palace hostel in Childers, a Victorian-era township of about 2,000 people, took up vacation work as fruitpickers in local orchards.