Youths who broke into Dubbo City Council's Church Street headquarters started the blaze on April 15, 2003 - 10 years ago today.

The early morning break-in went undetected because the administration office had no internal alarm system, the Daily Liberal reported in the days after the attack that changed the city.

Barry Grady, perhaps the most recognizable face at the council, had thought he was about to don a tie and head to work like any other morning.

Instead he rushed to his workplace in shorts and thongs that Tuesday dawn to find it up in smoke.

On the 10th anniversary of the fire, the customer service officer of 18 years shared his memories with Faye Wheeler.

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Q: How did you hear about the fire?

A: I happened to be on duty, doing my director's work at the RSL Club at 5.30 in the morning.

As I was leaving the building at 10 to seven the security guard on duty said to me, "Hey Baz, they've tried to burn your building down."

I questioned him, I said, "What?" and he said, "They've tried to burn your council building down."

I said I didn't think that would be right and he said he was fair dinkum.

I got into my car and drove down Brisbane Street then into Church Street to be greeted by fire engines, ambulances, police and naturally, onlookers.

Luckily, luckily, my director at the time, Mr Grahame Marchant was already on the scene with John Etcell and a couple of other staff members.

We stood by in amazement, in absolute shock, I was completely in shock about what I was seeing.

I asked the questioned how did this start and I was told it was deliberately lit.

It was pretty demoralizing really.

Q: That experience, you saw it for yourself...

A: I saw it for myself, five minutes after the security guard at the club had told me what had happened.

I was gobsmacked really, I went cold, I thought, "Heavens above".

Q: What did you see in other staff, what kind of reaction did they have at that time and in the coming days?

A: I was still around at the time people were coming to work.

They were just blown away the same as I was.

As they started to arrive Mr Marchant congregated us all over near the civic centre, away from the dangers of the fire and decisions were made there and then we would go home for the day and we would be advised at a later hour what to do.

I didn't go home, I stayed here and was listening to the procedures that were going to take place.

Then I went home and got changed and came back and it was decided we would move to the old Dubbo High School, which fortunately the council had recently purchased from the Department of Education.

Q: And work began from there?

A: From that time on.

The powers that be then, under the guidance of our general manager, Mr Tony Kelly, Mr Marchant and Mr Michael Bridge, who was also very prominent about making many of the correct decisions about what was going to happen.

Q: There must have been a lot of goodwill to make the move happen?

A: Everybody pulled together.

We were told where we were going to be, in which part of the building. I, in my prominent position, was in the old headmaster's office right in the front door as you walk in the entrance.

I envisaged pitching a tent in the middle of number one oval, under the big top - no, I am being flippant.

It worked like clockwork once people swung into action.

Q: Was there a sense of anger about the fire?

A: When they found out we had been broken into and it had been deliberately lit, yes there was a lot of anger, all of us, and of course the police did their job and months later... they got a result.

It's amazing - it was a tragedy that this place was burnt.

We look back now and we have a very modern office now, an additional level on the building.

All in all it was a team effort, a full team effort.

Q: Did you have any expectations about the $5.2 million renovation?

A: No, I knew that the guys had put the pen to plan and the builders and I knew that as I walked in... I was very happily surprised and it's worked well ever since.

Q: Do you think staff have put the fire behind them or for those who were here then is there still a memory?

A: There will always be a memory of it, especially in my mind seeing it at 10 to seven in the morning and when we talk about this building, that's the first thing that comes to my mind, the fire brigades, the ambulance, the police and smoke coming out of my workplace.

It was pretty demoralizing, really, pretty upsetting.

Q: What's been the best thing for you in the eight years since staff returned to Church Street?

A: The formation of the customer services centre here, and I'm not the only customer service officer now and we are a team, managed by Mr Bridge who is one of our very good leaders.

We have a great team in customer service and I'm sure the public of Dubbo are well looked after here now that this new customer service centre has been established.