MORE than 30 firefighters from across East Lancashire spent three hours tackling a blaze in a row of empty terraced houses last night.

A fire was deliberately started in one of the derelict properties in Hilary Street, Daneshouse, in Burnley, around 11.10pm on Tuesday.

By the time the first crews arrived, it had spread quickly through the roof voids to three more houses.

Pumps from Blackburn, Accrington and Padiham responded as well as an aerial ladder platform to spread water from above the flames.

Burnley crew manager Andy Coulton said: “This row of houses is earmarked for demolition. They are all boarded up, but clearly somebody has broken in and decided to light a fire.

“With the nature of the construction of these terraces, there has been several big incidents in the past few years, so we called in six crews.

“There was no danger to people, but the risk is to those people going in and lighting fires in these condemned and dangerous properties.”

Firefighters put breaks in and the fire was out at 2am.

The four properties were completely destroyed. Police are also investigating.

An fire incident intelligent officer was back at the scene on Wednesday.