Firefighters in West Yorkshire had to attend almost one arson case almost EVERY HOUR last year.

Crews in West Yorkshire dealt with 6,948 deliberate fires in 2017, data from the Home Office shows.

This was a jump of 12.5% on the 6,178 recorded in 2016 and averages one every 75 minutes, every day of the year.

The 6,948 deliberate fires in 2017 caused four deaths and 89 injuries, the data reveals.

Only in March a fire at Bank Bottom Mills in Marsden was being treated as suspicious - and at its height six fire engines were needed.

Fire crews wearing particle masks deal with the fire in the centre of the mill complex

Material trapped in the void between one of the mill floors and the ceiling below had caught fire, filling the mill with smoke.

Huddersfield watch commander Andy Wooler from Huddersfield Fire Station said: “Looking at where and why it started a fire shouldn’t have started there so we believe it is suspicious.”

Fire crews wearing particle masks and breathing apparatus sets deal with the fire in the centre of the mill complex

Some 173 of the fires were started in homes and 935 of them in cars and other vehicles.

Across England fire crews attended 83,183 deliberately-started fires in 2017, up 11% on the previous year.

More than 3,000 were in people’s homes.

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The Home Office also said that crews attended 746 fires of all kinds in purpose-built blocks of flats at least 10 storeys tall last year, 57 of which were in West Yorkshire.

The department has been publishing more detailed data on fires high-rise flats since the Grenfell Tower disaster in London last June in which 71 people lost their lives.