Upper floor of blaze-hit Wigan borough farmhouse still too dangerous to search for "bodies"

Crews were called to a blaze on Garrett Hall Lane in Tyldesley, at 1am on Saturday September 11 and spent many hours tackling it.

It was treated as a "persons reported" incident because the likeliest cause was squatters lighting a fire or youngsters committing arson, because the building should have been unoccupied and there were no gas or electricity supplies to cause it to go up in flames in the middle of the night.

But the fire left the premises in such a precarious state that it took several days for anyone to dare go inside to check for human remains following a safety inspection.

It has now been ruled out that there were no people caught up in the incident downstairs, but the upper floor is simply too dangerous for any inspection to be made.

A spokesman for Atherton fire station said that the fire service's involvement in the incident had now come to an end.

He said that he thought it would be difficult for the council to get involved because the wrecked buildings on private land and so the onus was now with the landowner.

The 999 services had been reassured that no-one has been reported missing since the blaze, but the only way now of finding out if there are any bodies on the upper floor is when it comes to demolishing it.

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