Multiple fire crews attended an abandoned building blaze in Oldham in the early hours of the morning.

The derelict property, on Dairy Street in Chadderton, was tackled by three fire engines for more than three hours to control the flames.

While officers were unable to determine the cause of the fire, the fire service said it may have been set deliberately.

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) said: "We've just got back from a derelict building on fire on Dairy Street - all three of the borough's pumps were in attendance.

"We got it at 3.15am and didn't leave until 6.30am. Three fire engines were there tackling it with handheld jets, but we're not sure what caused it.

"It's possibly deliberate, but they couldn't say for sure - it couldn't have been electricity as the place is empty."

It comes as The Oldham Times reported last month that 3,690 fires which the fire service attended to between January 2018 and October 2023, were intentionally set.

A freedom of information request sent to GMFRS by The Oldham Times revealed the true extent of arson in the borough, with 3,020 of those being arson attacks while the remaining 670 were carried out by arsonists setting fire to their own property - most commonly to claim on their home insurance.

However, despite there being over 3,000 deliberate fires in the borough in five years, there has been a year-on-year decline in the number of intentional fires.

Speaking at the time Independent Cllr Marc Hince, of Shaw ward, said: "The thing with arson attacks is that they are rarely connected so that means there could be 3,000 odd culprits - so that's around one per cent of Oldham's population.

"My sympathy is with the fire service, people set fires for fun believe it or not - and the majority come from delinquency."

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