Large fire at empty former pub and doctors' surgery in Wigan

Emergency services found the top floor and roof of the building on Ince Green Lane well ablaze at around 4pm on Sunday.

Other news: Shock figures show high rate of avoidable deaths in WiganThe entire roof and at least half of the top floor of the building was completely destroyed by the flames.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) attended and an investigation is now under way.

Ince Green Lane was also closed for a couple of hours while a hydraulic platform was used to spray water onto the blaze from above into areas crews wearing breathing apparatus had been unable to reach.

It was a difficult firefighting operation and crews were at the scene for around three hours.

Watch manager Mike Callan from Hindley fire station said: "Once we had the fire under control we used the platform to strip the roof back and water areas when couldn't get to from inside.

"It was quite a large building and the roof had a lot of dormers in it. It was quite a complex area up there in the roof void, it wasn't a straightforward property for us to work on.

"Somebody is clearly responsible for this."

Wigan Council's dangerous buildings team also attended the scene and boarded up the site to make it safe.

Police supervised the road closure so the hydraulic platform could safely work in the middle of the street and diverted motorists elsewhere.

Three fire engines and the platform attended the incident.