Fire crews say they are working with the managers of a recycling company after being called out to two skip fires in less than 36 hours.

Firefighters from Blackburn fire station were called to the household waste and recycling centre in George Street West in the town in the early hours of Tuesday and then in the early hours of Wednesday morning, to fires which they believe are being lit deliberately. 

The first call to the tip came at 12.38am on Tuesday, with crews taking 30 minutes to extinguish the fire, which occurred in a skip within the compound.

The second call came just over 24 hours later, at 3.02am on Wednesday, when the same crew attended a fire in two waste disposable skips, again within the compound.

A spokesperson from Blackburn fire station believes people are breaking into the locked premises to look for items to steal in the skips, before setting them alight.

They added: "We've had fires at the same place two nights in a row; they were both in skips in the recycling centre.

"We think that people are breaking in and rummaging through the skips trying to steal what they can and then setting the skips on fire.

"This has happened before and our technical fire safety department are in dialogue with the owners to come to a solution."

Firefighters used two hose reels to extinguish the first fire and a hose reel and a hose reel jet to extinguish the second fire. 

The recycling centre is owned by Blackburn with Darwen Council but managed by Suez.

Councillor Jim Smith, environment boss at the council, said: "We've had this before with people breaking in and stealing metal, which they can then sell on, but this sounds like it might be juveniles.

"Whether it is or isn't kids, it's still a daft thing to do and I would be very concerned for their safety.

"It's about common sense, they could get trapped in there and be seriously hurt or worse.

"Obviously we take things like this seriously and will do our best to catch whoever is responsible, and will continue to work with the fire service and Suez to make the grounds secure.

"But I would say, don't be doing stupid things like that."

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