A heat image shows parts of the buildings walls are still warm more than 12 hours after the blaze ignited, and a highest priority 10th alarm was raised.
Windows of the adjacent apartment buildings were shattered by the heat, with multiple office floors littered with debris and exploded wine bottles, which were sitting on a window ledge.
The street below is covered in a carpet of bricks, completely surrounding a ute parked beneath.
Dashcam footage of firefighters rushing to the scene shows plumes of smoke billowing above buildings in Surry Hills, near Central Station.
Two 13-year-olds have come forward to police after the arson squad began investigating the blaze.
NSW Police are waiting for others to come forward.
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More than 120 firefighters and 30 fire trucks from multiple stations across Sydney battled the blaze.
Acting assistant commissioner Paul Dunstan described the inferno as a “once in decade type of fire”.
The building had been vacant for about 12 months while deconstruction work was taking place.
It was a 100-year-old building made out of dry timber that was the “perfect set of conditions for an intense fire”.
Some residents are still evacuated and diversions are still in place around the buildings.