I can't wrap my head around this sentence, particularly the underlined part.
しかし、火事になったとき何人泊まっていたかわからないため、逃げるのが遅れた人がほかにもいないかどうか確かめています。
It's not asking a question, that much I can tell. I want to lean on it saying "whether", like in the explaination here -
http://www.learn-japanese-adventure.com/ka-dou-ka.html
- but it only uses "かどうか” as a primary example.