aA TEENAGER who started a fire that caused (pounds) 600,000 worth of damage to a school was sentenced to two years' detention in a young offenders' institution yesterday.

Mark Cowan, 18, and Abdul Alamin, 20, set fire to a rack of old gymnasium ropes being kept in a store shed at the McLaren High School, in Callander.

Stirling Sheriff Court was told that unemployed Cowan, of Stirling, had been staying in council paid-for bed and breakfast accommodation when the offence was committed.

Cowan and Alamin, a waiter, went to the shed after Alamin finished his work in an Indian restaurant. Together they downed a bottled a vodka before, the court was told, ''one or the other of them'' set fire to one of the ropes.

Sharon McCrudden, prosecuting, said the blaze spread quickly, destroying a building that housed the school's swimming pool. More than 60 firefighters took over two hours to extinguish the fire.

Ms McCrudden said the pool building had ceased to be used for swimming by the time of the fire, last July, but had been earmarked for refurbishment as new classrooms. She said that loss-adjusters estimated the cost of replacing the pool building at between (pounds) 400,000 and (pounds) 500,000. In addition, (pounds) 30,000 had been spent on building repairs, and (pounds) 70,000 on replacing gym equipment and cleaning musical instruments.

Cowan, of Glasgow Road, Stirling, pleaded guilty to fireraising at the school, on July 24, 2000. An allegation that a school employee, Barbara McSherry, was endangered by the blaze was dropped.

Alamin, of Afton, Birmingham, pleaded guilty to a similar charge in May and was sentenced in June, but an order was imposed banning publication of the outcome of the case against him until the case against Cowan had been heard.

Defence agent Virgil Crawford, for Cowan, and advocate Ian Donaldson, for Alamin, said both accused had been under the influence of drink when they decided ''in a moment of madness'' to set fire to the old ropes to see how fast they would burn.

Sheriff Wyllie Robertson told Cowan - said to have a a number of previous convictions and matters pending - that because of his record and the amount of damage, no sentence but a custodial one was appropriate for him. The sheriff added: ''Wilful fireraising is a charge which the courts will take a serious view of in any

circumstances.''

Alamin, described as an industrious young man with no criminal record, was previously sentenced by Sheriff Gordon Liddell to 200 hours' community service.