A STORAGE building fire could have happened because someone went inside to try and keep warm as the temperature dropped.

The building, filled with landscaping equipment, caught fire earlier today and emergency services arrived at the scene because it was thought there could have been people trapped inside.

The site off Church Street West is known to be used by rough sleepers and the fire and ambulance services were concerned for the welfare of anyone who may have been in the building at the time.

Fortunately there was no one inside the storage building, which contained a lot of old wooden materials such as signs and sleepers.

Watch manager Ian Melville from Farnworth fire station, said: "When we got there we had an outbuilding that was well alight with smoke being seen from quite a distance.

"We were told that people may have been using it to sleep in so that escalated the incident slightly."

It took firefighters around 90 minutes to deal with the blaze and confirm there was no one inside the building and no one was injured.

Mr Melville said: "It was either started by someone who got in trying to keep themselves warm or it was done deliberately."

The fire service, police and ambulance were called to the scene at around 10.30am.