The number of deliberately started fires in south Essex has now reached 18 in just a few weeks.

Fire and police chiefs on Friday joined in condemning arsonists after firefighters risked their own lives searching the flats for youngsters possibly trapped inside.

For more on this story see 'Southend: Town centre grinds to halt as flats burn' in the drop-down menu at the bottom of this story Station officer Mick Watton said: "We have had a lot of arsons and a lot of malicious calls recently. Youngsters use deserted buildings as dens and sometimes set fire to them, but they don't realise they are playing a dangerous game.

"If they are in these buildings when they set them alight they could get trapped in them. They are causing a danger to themselves and putting firefighters at risk. We are trained to do a job but maliciously caused fires put us in unnecessary danger.

"It also means crews are being used to put out a fire which needn't have happened and are not available to deal with other fires which could come up. This puts other people's lives at risk."

Acting Insp Kevin Diable-White, of Southend police, said: "I would warn people, especially youngsters, about the dangers of derelict buildings and starting fires in them.

"Arson is a criminal offence and we will deal with it as such. The longest sentence for arson is life imprisonment.

"In the case of the Victoria Avenue fire, the building could have collapsed on one of the fire crew or a member of the public and then, if it was arson, someone could be looking at manslaughter charges.

"People often don't realise the dangers and seriousness of fire."

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