Winter Hill blaze: Police arrest 20-year-old man on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life

6 July 2018 at 9:33 am

<em>Lancashire Police said they have arrested a 20-year-old man on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life (Picture: PA)</em> — *Lancashire Police said they have arrested a 20-year-old man on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life (Picture: PA)*

A 20-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life in connection with a moorland blaze on Winter Hill.

The man, from Wigan, was arrested on Friday morning (July 6th), Lancashire Police said.

The blaze near Bolton was declared a major incident last Saturday after two large-scale fires either side of Winter Hill merged because of increased wind speed.

A 22-year-old man was arrested last week on suspicion of starting one of the fires and later released under investigation.

<em>The blaze was declared a major incident after two fires merged (Picture: PA)</em> — *The blaze was declared a major incident after two fires merged (Picture: PA)*

The latest arrest in connection with the fire comes as Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham visited crews on the scene on Friday morning.

He said: “I wanted to come here again today to say a huge thank you to all the crews fighting this fire, including crews from Greater Manchester, Lancashire and many other fire and rescue services.

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“They are working incredibly hard and the public are so grateful for their efforts.

“Following assessments of the incident ground on the Greater Manchester side of the hill yesterday, and in consultation with LFRS, today we are able to scale back some of GMFRS’s resources from that area.

“Good progress is being made and over the weekend there will be five GMFRS appliances supporting Lancashire.”