WHITEFIELD fire service was called to a block of flats after a large amount of rubbish was set on fire.

The crew were called to Bury Old Road, at 2.50am, where they found a substantial amount of rubbish on fire in the back yard of the flats.

Youths were seen fleeing the scene on the fire crew’s arrival.

After tackling the fire the crew tidied the scene to find that the fire had burnt through a gas pipe.

National Grid was called and fire-fighters remained on the scene until they arrived.

Crew manager Tony Wellock said: “We started moving the burnt material to see if it was still burning and we saw the pipe.

“You could hear the hissing, it was quite a substantial gas leak- it could have been very dangerous.

“The National Grid turned up and capped the pipe and also turned off the gas of the ground floor property.”