FIREFIGHTERS are warning smokers to ensure cigarettes are stubbed out before discarding them after an accidental wheelie bin fire came ‘dangerously close’ to damaging a Nelson home.

Watch manager Caroline Harrison said if the blaze in Berkeley Street at 10.15pm on Friday had been allowed to burn any longer it had it could have set fire to a nearby property.

She said: “We can tell it was started by a cig by the burn pattern and the length of time it took to take hold.

“Make sure cigs are stubbed out in a metal ashtray or doused in water.”