Teens charged over Sydney inferno
Two teenagers have been charged in relation to a suspicious fire that engulfed a Surry Hills building in May.
Smoke poured into the sky as the blaze fully engulfed the multistorey building on Randle Street on May 25, metres away from busy Central Station just before peak hour.
More than 100 firefighters and specialist equipment were needed to contain and extinguish the blaze, but they could not save the building, which was demolished in the weeks after the fire.
Two other nearby buildings were significantly damaged by the fire, leaving dozens of people displaced.
Strike Force Strontium issued court attendances to two 13-year-old boys “for the offences of destroy property in company use fire etc more than $5000, and enter enclosed land not prescribed premises without lawful excuse” a NSW Police spokesperson said on Wednesday.
One of the boys was also charged with two counts of shoplifting, that are alleged to have occurred at a grocery store on Elizabeth Street on the same day.
Both of the boys will appear at a children’s court in October.
In the wake of the fire, police and cadaver dogs spent days combing tonnes of debris to search for anyone who may have been killed caught up in the blaze, with a number of homeless people known to stay inside.
Luckily, no injuries were reported and no persons remained unaccounted for.
An exclusion zone was set up around the building for weeks to protect the community from falling debris.
Images inside the gutted building revealed how the intensity of the fire melted interiors and left piles of rubble from the collapsed walls in its wake.
Whole floors had caved in to leave a cavity inside the empty shell of a building, with exploded windows and tonnes of bricks left behind in the street.
Two 13-year-olds handed themselves in to separate police stations in the wake of the fire and were assisting inquiries.