Firefighters were this morning tackling a large blaze which has reduced Lancashire's historic but ramshackle Fleetwood Pier to a smouldering mass of twisted metal.

A member of the public called the emergency services at 4.30am, after seeing smoke and flames coming from the front of the former tourist attraction, which had fallen into disrepair and had recently been boarded up.

A convoy of fire engines lined the promenade, as firefighters using high-level cranes pumped water from a nearby boating lake onto the top of the flames, while crews on the ground used hoses to attack the base of the blaze.

Dozens of locals stood in the rain watching smoke billow into the air from the landmark. The flames occasionally reared up as gusts of wind buffeted the smoking structure on the shoreline.

A spokeswoman for Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service said that the blaze was a serious incident.

“Sixty firefighters are at the scene along with two aerial ladder platforms. When they got there it was well alight and structurally it has been destroyed," said the spokesman.

Fleetwood is the second pier to go up in flames this summer. In July 28 the pavilion of the 104-year-old Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, was destroyed in just over 90 minutes in a blaze that damaged most of the structure. Only a walkway near the road survived intact and was reopened to the public days later.

Sheila Grace, 60, who was born in Fleetwood and owns the nearby Sandpipers Hotel on the Esplanade, spoke of her sadness at the destruction.

"The pier has been in some disrepair for a while. I know things have changed, but it was the jewel in Fleetwood’s crown - everybody headed there and everybody knew it - and in the last few years it has been just nothing,” she said.

Eric Smallman, 43, who owns the Savoy hotel 75 yards from Fleetwood pier, said that the fire was an accident that had been waiting to happen.

He said: “We have had a bit of trouble recently with kids breaking into it and causing mischief really. Lots of local residents were concerned something like this would happen.

“It was boarded up in the last few days and I have heard this morning kids were in there last night. It sounds like they were messing around and inadvertently started the fire.

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