Peter Joseph King, of Waratah, would often wait around after lighting a blaze to watch the fire spread and once pretended to be a witness and reported a fire he had lit to police because he was worried it was going to burn out of control.

King, who remains behind bars after he was bail refused on New Year's Day, has pleaded guilty to five counts of intentionally or recklessly damaging property by fire and will be sentenced next month. In total the five fires caused more than $200,000 in damage.

It was about 9pm on December 12 when King walked down a long driveway off Port Stephens Street at Raymond Terrace, flipped open the lid to a garbage bin and tossed a lit match inside.

Then King walked to a nearby home and seemed to forget about it.

It was the first fire in what would be a six-day spree and the only time King did not hang around to watch the fire grow.

And that would prove crucial because inside the bin, among a stack of cardboard boxes, the fire quickly took hold and spread to the adjoining business, DanceXtreme, a large dance studio owned and operated by Libby and Peter Blundell.

The flames spread into the roof and the business suffered major smoke and water damage. The Blundells said on Tuesday that they were "gutted" by the damage done by the fire, which forced them to cancel a family holiday and looks certain to delay the start of classes this year. A few nights later, King torched two large skip bins and then destroyed three cars on two separate nights by lighting scrunched up balls of paper underneath the fuel tanks.

After his arrest, King told police he did not know the first fire had spread from the bin into the dance studio and denied knowing that the three cars he torched, at separate locations, were owned by disability support services.