A road in Accrington was closed yesterday after a four-house fire.

Motorists were diverted away from the road as firefighters tackled the blaze.

Fire Chiefs are treating the incident as suspicious after finding that the houses where the blaze started were empty.

"The major challenge was that our access was limited because all the houses are empty.

"We had to fight it from outside.

"From what we could tell, entry had been forced and that is why we are treating it as suspicious.

"There will be a joint police and fire investigation into where the seat of the fire was and the surrounding CCTV cameras will be checked to see if there’s any evidence."

The dampening down process continued into the early hours of this morning.