FIREFIGHTERS spent more than four hours fighting a suspicious blaze in a three-storey disused hotel in the centre of Nelson.

At its height 42 firefighters from neighbouring towns tackled the blaze which started in a storage cupboard in the middle of the first floor of the former Groves Hotel in Manchester Road and spread through the ceiling to the second floor and then through to the roof.

Nelson Sub Officer Gary Kiyani said: "We got the call at 11.15pm and found the whole of the building heavily smoke logged.

"It was a difficult fire to tackle because it is an old building and was built in a strange way. There are many rooms inside but only two staircases and we had no plans to work off to decide how to get to the fire.

"It was a suspicious fire. The building is owned but it is disused and there was no electricity supply and the gas supply was away from where the fire started.

It was 3am before four of the fire crews were stood down, but two remained at the property until 7am.

Firefighters together with the fire service sniffer dog and police scenes of crime officers were investigating the cause today.