KEY POINTS:
Pupils of a Tauranga school turned up for their third day of 2009 today to find two classrooms had been destroyed by fire.
The blaze at Welcome Bay School, southeast of the city, was the result of an arson attack, local fire safety officer Jon Rewi told the Bay of Plenty Times.
He said the fire was started last night in a large plastic rubbish bin attached to a classroom.
"Somebody has put a hot object in there, which has ignited the rubbish and it's gone from there.
"It wouldn't have needed an accelerant. They (the bins) are an accelerant in themselves," he said.
The blaze took more than 20 firefighters over an hour to bring under control and was likely to have razed a second classroom block if a resident had not reported it early, Tauranga senior station officer Grant Taylor said.
Police said people who had been around the school about the time of the fire had been spoken to, and anyone who saw suspicious activity or knew about the incident was urged to contact police.
- NZPA
