A 16-year-old girl remained critically ill last night with burns to 40 per cent of her body after she caught fire in the yard of a national school in Dundalk, Co Louth.
Her 18-year-old boyfriend, who was also hospitalised, was injured but not as seriously and his condition was said to be "stable". Both are being treated in the burns unit of St James's Hospital in Dublin.
It appears that the clothes the teenagers were wearing caught fire when they were in the yard of St Nicholas's Monastery National School, Dundalk.
Gardaí interviewed the youth last night, as well as six friends of the couple who were in their company in the hours leading up to the fire on Saturday night, to find out what happened.
The two had left the group to go into the school grounds and the first sign of any trouble was when the girl's screams were heard and she was seen, on fire, running across the school yard. She left a trail of clothes across the yard as she tried to pull off the burning garments and save herself.
The fire was reported at 10.40 p.m. and attended by gardaí, the ambulance services and Dundalk Fire Brigade. Some scorch marks were visible near a lean-to attached to a large shed in the yard. It is thought the pair may have gone into the lean-to for shelter before the fire.
The fire service believes an accelerant was used and gardaí yesterday carried out a technical examination of the area to try and establish how and why the fire broke out.
The possibility that petrol may have been involved was being investigated. People have entered the school grounds to sniff petrol in the past.
Gardaí in Dundalk have appealed for anyone who saw anything or has information about the fire to contact them.