A HAMPSHIRE school will remain closed today following a £1m fire - just days after vandals targeted the property, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.

Today, police said they could not rule out that the fire at Thornden School in Chandler's Ford was also the result of vandalism.

Investigating officer Graham Reeve said: "Our job here is to keep an open mind until evidence can lead us to positively ruling a cause in or out. From the initial findings it doesn't appear that an accelerant was used but we are still treating the cause as suspicious."

The fire comes four days after the school was hit by vandals who caused £4,000 damage to a state-of-the-art music complex.

education bosses say the school will be closed to its 1,300 pupils and staff for at least the next two days until temporary buildings are brought in.

Six classrooms - including maths, food technology and textiles rooms - were wrecked by the blaze that is being treated as suspicious by investigators.

It is estimated that 80 per cent of the main building has also been damaged by smoke.

About 50 firefighters tackled the fire at the Winchester Road school after the alarm was raised by resident caretaker Roger Hiscock at midnight on Saturday - just 15 hours after firefighters returned to work following their eight-day strike over pay.

Mr Hiscock, who has been caretaker at the school for 23 years, noticed smoke coming from the rear of the building. He said: "At first I thought the fog had come down early but I quickly realised it was smoke. I looked closer and saw this thick black smoke billowing out of the windows and immediately called 999.

"They were here extremely quickly and if it wasn't for their actions there is no doubt it would have been a lot worse."

It took three hours for the crews from Eastleigh, Redbridge, Winchester and Romsey to extinguish the fire that started in the ground floor of the two-storey building.

Eighteen firefighters wearing breathing apparatus stopped the fire from spreading to adjacent blocks but were unable to stop smoke pouring into nearby classrooms.

Chief education officer for Hampshire Andrew Seber said: "We have initially assessed the damage done by the fire and we are organising temporary classrooms as six have been gutted by the fire.

Forensic scientists and scenes-of-crime officers spent much of yesterday picking over the ruins of the damaged wing.

The vandal attacks have sparked calls for police to step up patrols in the area.