A VOLUNTEER firefighter who was accused of sparking a number of blazes in bushland outside Cessnock and Maitland because he was "bored" and then turned up to fight some of the fires has admitted to being responsible for the wave of arson attacks.
Jack Hardidge appeared in Cessnock Local Court on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to eight counts of intentionally causing fire and being reckless as to its spread.
Prosecutors did not apply to have him detained ahead of sentencing and his bail was continued until next month.
Hardidge was arrested at Aberglasslyn in August last year after a "lengthy and tenacious" investigation by the Arson Unit into a number of suspicious and deliberately lit bushfires focused on the then 18-year-old NSW Rural Fire Service volunteer firefighter.
He was accused of lighting fires in grassland at Weston, Pelaw Main, Bellbird, Greta, Aberglasslyn, Melville and Cessnock on a number of occasions between July and August last year.
Prosecutors said in court that one fire burnt through about 16,000 square metres of bush, while another torched 11,000 square metres.
Police said Hardidge then attended some of the fires as a volunteer firefighter to help extinguish the blazes.
They said Hardidge's position as a volunteer firefighter with the NSW Rural Fire Service meant he knew the dangers of an out-of-control fire and on some days he had lit as many as three blazes.
Hardidge will be sentenced in Cessnock Local Court in June after the DPP agreed to prosecute the matter in the local court, where the teenager faces lesser maximum penalties.
