Surry Hills blaze: Two teenagers charged over once-in-a-decade building fire in Sydney

Arson squad detectives have charged two 13-year-old boys over a suspicious multi-storey building inferno that caused chaos in Sydney's CBD.

More than 120 firefighters from 30 fire trucks battled the blaze which broke out at a heritage-listed former hat factory in Surry Hills. Credit: FRNSW MEDIA/PR IMAGE

Key Points

• Four teenagers were originally questioned in May but no charges were laid.
• The fire destroyed the heritage building known as the former Henderson Hat factory near Central station
• One of the teenagers was also charged with shoplifting on the same day

Two 13-year-old boys have been charged over a catastrophic fire that destroyed a heritage multi-storey building on Randle Street in Sydney's Surry Hills earlier this year.

More than 100 firefighters battled to contain the Surry Hills blaze in May but the once-in-a-decade fire brought down the seven-storey former Henderson Hat hat factory.

NSW Police said two 13-year-old boys were charged with a number of offences on Wednesday, including destroying property with fire and entering premises without a lawful excuse.

The fire quickly took hold of the heritage-listed former hat factory in Sydney's Surry Hills. Source: AAP / Dean Lewins

One of the boys was also charged with two counts of shoplifting, that was alleged to have occurred at a grocery store on Elizabeth Street on the same day.

Three teenagers handed themselves in to police in the days after the fire which led to dozens of people being evacuated from nearby buildings and left at least 100 people living in the area displaced.

Police said they had spoken with a number of teenagers after the massive inferno caused mayhem across the city and required specialist teams to demolish the entire structure and surrounding buildings.

Both boys will appear at a children's court on 4 October.