Orange police make arrest following fire at Glenroi Heights Public School

Speaking on Wednesday, Acting Superintendent and Relieving Commander at Central West Police District, Gerard Lawson, confirmed an arrest had been made the day prior, a little more than two weeks after the administration building at Glenroi Heights Public School went up in flames.

"Since then, police and detectives here at Orange have been conducting further inquiries and those inquiries have led to the arrest of a 12-year-old boy on (December 20), who will face Children's Court," he said.

"Those inquiries aren't finished yet. We're still looking for a possible co-offender and will be following up those inquiries in the next day or two."

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Asked if the 12-year-old attended the school, Acting Superintendent Lawson said: "Not as far as I'm aware and certainly not at that school at the moment."

In terms of a possible co-offender, Acting Superintendent Lawson added that police hoped to have investigations wrapped up by the end of the week.

"We're still open-minded about those things, but there is one other person we want to speak to," he said.

"In the next day or two we should be able to tidy that up."

Questioned about the length of time it took to make an arrest since the fire took place on December 5, Acting Superintendent Lawson said it had been an "exhaustive investigation".

"CCTV has been a feature of the investigation and it's taken us a couple days to catch up with the young man who we thought might be involved and get to a place where we could conduct an interview," he added.

"I would congratulate the detectives. They didn't let the ball fall, they kept pursuing every opportunity to gather evidence and result in an arrest."

Acting Superintendent Lawson also revealed the monetary figure attached to the amount of damage caused to the school was in the vicinity of $3 million.

He added that it was still unknown how exactly the fire was started, but that it occurred "not long before" emergency services arrived at the scene just before 11pm that night.

"At this stage, we don't really know too much about it other than it was a careless and reckless act," he added.

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