A police investigation is under way after three cars were burned and a building caught aflame in the early hours of Monday morning at Orange City Council's works depot on McLachlan Street.
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Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage was caused to the building, while three vehicles completely gutted by flame and a fourth had some fire damage.
Central West Police District chief inspector Scott Rayner said detectives from both Orange and Bathurst were on the scene on Monday to determine what sparked the blaze, but said "at this stage it's being treated as suspicious".
He said police were hoping to view CCTV footage from both nearby businesses and the depot itself to help identify any potential culprits.
MAP: Where the council's McLachlan Street works depot is located ...
However, chief inspector Raynor stopped short of linking the car burnings to the spate of over 40 cars which have been torched in the city so far this year, saying police couldn't connect Monday's fire to the broader issue this early into an investigation.
Firefighters and emergency services were called to the blaze at 2.43am on Monday and found three cars alight.
The fire from those vehicles spread into the depot structure, breaking two glass doors at the entrance to the building.
The Central Western Daily recently published a five-part series about the burning issue of care fires. Read part one here.
A fourth vehicle was also damaged. All vehicles were owned by the council.
NSW Fire and Rescue station officer Tom Fenlon said firefighters spent spent two and a half hours extinguishing the three vehicles and the building.
A mixture of 17 administrative and engineering staff work in the building damaged by the fire, and council is currently working to relocate them to other buildings and find places for them to work over the coming weeks and months.
The building was used by council staff who work with construction and planning of roads and footpaths, but most if not all planning records kept in the building were backed-up electronically off-site.
The council posted an update on their Facebook page confirming no one was injured in the blaze.
"Staff at the Council Works depot in McLachlan Street are dealing with the impact of a fire that's caused major damage to the depot's main admin building in the early hours of this morning," the post said.
The blaze follows a car burned in the early hours of Saturday morning, while powerpoles were also set alight.
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Max Stainkamph
Max joined the CWD in September 2017, leaving the big smoke of Melbourne to come to Orange, where he stayed until 2020.
Max joined the CWD in September 2017, leaving the big smoke of Melbourne to come to Orange, where he stayed until 2020.
