Man rescued from blazing flat in busy night for Keighley fire crews (From Keighley News)

Man rescued from blazing flat in busy night for Keighley fire crews

12:04pm Sunday 17th February 2013 in Keighley By Miran Rahman

A man was rescued from a blazing first-floor flat in Keighley town centre early this morning.

The fire, in Church Street, was caused by a burning chip pan.

Firefighters from Keighley, Bingley and Haworth were called out to the incident at 2.30am.

The rescued man did not need hospital treatment.

Three other people managed to escape from the property unaided.

There was extensive damage to the kitchen.

It was a busy night for fire crews, which also responded to a “malicious” false alarm and attended house and rubbish fires.

Condemning the false alarm, Keighley crew commander David Knox said: “It was a complete fabrication. These malicious calls take up valuable resources - people should not do this.”

The string of incidents began at 8.45pm yesterday when Keighley personnel tackled a fire in the grounds of Marley Stadium.

Crew commander Knox said: “There’s some wasteland at the back near the river, where some trees have been cut down. Someone had set fire to wood and shrubs.

“It wasn’t too bad, but it took us half an hour to deal with because it was some distance from the road and we were carrying things back and forth.”

At 5.20am today fire engines from Keighley and Bingley responded to a reported fire in Parkwood Street, only for the Keighley crew to reach the scene and realise it was a hoax call.

The Bingley appliance was diverted to tackle a genuine emergency at a terraced house in Drewry Road, Highfield. It was joined by the Keighley engine, which had left the scene of the false alarm.

Crew commander Knox said the house fire involved a cooker in a basement, and had not caused major damage. “There were people in the house, but they’d been alerted by smoke alarms and no one was hurt,” he said.