THE number of accidental fires in Lancashire rocketed over the festive period, it has been revealed.

There were a total of 131 fires in the county during December caused by mishaps, the majority of which were caused by chip pans and cooking accidents.

Lancashire’s assistant chief fire officer Chris Kenny said fires were up 18 per cent compared to the previous year.

He blamed cooking, as well as cigarettes and people leaving things too close to heaters or the fire for the increase.

He said: “Cooking mishaps are still the most common cause of fires (59 per cent), typically when food, often chips in a pan of oil, is set to cook and forgotten about.

“Smoking too is still a major cause of fires, with 21 per cent of all fires starting in the living room of a property being due to careless disposal of cigarettes.

“However, the biggest cause of fires in the living room is that of combustible materials being left too close to a heat source or fire, such as clothing too near to a fire, or candles too near to curtains.”

He said they would continue home fire safety checks to advice people, but added: “In addition we will be extracting any and every shred of information from the incidents that have happened to inform and fine tune where possible our fire prevention strategies.”

Mr Kenny said Lancashire has achieved year-on-year reductions in fires for the past 10 years. But he said that whilst there was a seven per cent drop in accidental blazes in November 2010 the downward trend was reversed in December with an 18 per cent rise, from 111 incidents in 2009 to 131 in 2010.