Authorities arrested and charged a teenager with arson in the July fire that gutted a school gymnasium near downtown Las Vegas.

The 15-year-old was arrested Thursday, nearly six months after the July 5 blaze that destroyed a gym at Martin Middle School. The juvenile's name was not released because of his age.

Investigators had said a group of children playing with matches or a lighter inside the gym started the inferno, which caused about $7.5 million in damage and sent a column of heavy smoke into the air above Las Vegas.

The boy was charged with one count of first-degree arson.

Possible charges against others are pending.

District Attorney David Roger said the boy ignited clothing in a second-story storage room of the gym. "As a result, this got way out of hand," Roger said.

The maximum penalty for the crime is confinement in a state youth facility for up to a year.

Edward Goldman, associate superintendent of the district's Education Services Division, said his office has reviewed cases where students are accused of arson. But he said it has never been on a scale comparable to the fire that gutted Martin's 46-year-old gymnasium.

Goldman said he was not allowed to specifically comment on the case of the of the student arrested for arson. But he said district policy calls for swift action against students who are accused of the crime.

"Arson is a mandatory recommendation for expulsion," Goldman said.

Goldman said the principal of the student who is accused of arson must automatically recommend that the student be expelled. The accused student will have a maximum of three attempts to appeal the expulsion, and if the expulsion is upheld, the punishments vary for students in middle school and high school, Goldman said.

Goldman said a student at a middle school can be sent to a behavioral campus at the district for up to 18 weeks. School Board members voted in November to replace the school entirely instead of remodeling it. The cost of the new school will be about $33 million.

The board's vote came with a stipulation that district officials try to obtain monetary damages from the parents of the juveniles responsible for the fire.

The district had to pay a $100,000 deductible from its insurance policy to begin the process of obtaining a new gym for the school.

Trustee Susan Brager-Wellman, who was not present during the November vote, said she's wary of punishing parents for the actions of their children.

"You could be the best parent in the world, so why should you be accountable if they (your children) go and do things unbeknownst to you?" Brager-Wellman asked.

She added that it should be the students responsible for the fire who are punished financially, even if it takes the juvenile or juveniles 20 years to pay the cost of repairing the damage.

"The students need to be accountable for their actions," Brager-Wellman said. "They need to realize this lesson is going to be a hard lesson."