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Firemen battle a daily menace

Ben Turner
2/ 7/2004

BURNING cars remain an almost daily, time-wasting menace for Rochdale firefighters, new figures reveal.

More than 200 hours were spent dealing with blazing cars, vans, lorries and bikes over the last 12 months.

Between April 2003 and April 2004, Rochdale crews were called to 328 vehicle fires, at least 290 of which were started deliberately.

Worringly, figures increased slightly from the previous year when there were 319 incidents, with 286 treated as arson.

Acting Rochdale station commander, Mark Beswick, admitted that car fires, which take an average of 45 minutes to deal with, were a problem in Rochdale and a considerable drain on resources.

"The hotspots are the housing estates," he said. "We are having particular problems at the moment in Deeplish and Spotland."

"It can often be the case that we are returning to the same estate on successive nights - even the same street is not unknown."

"It is frustrating for firefighters to go back to the same area within a week. It is worrying that we could be somewhere else dealing with a more serious incident."

He said youths who started out setting cars alight often moved on to house fires and other more serious arson attacks.

"There is a general trend that if a youngster's fire-starting isn't identified early on, they move on upwards."

Targetted housing estates were also the places where residents could least afford to lose their cars, he added.

"They are often set alight in these busy areas and when they burn they give off a lot of toxins. A car fire can potentially make a person very ill.

"They are not only a danger to firefighters but to the environment as well."

" There can be a lot of toxic smoke."