Fences panels and wheelie bins are being stolen by youths to start a string of woodland fires during lockdown.
As many as eight fires have been started in the same area of woodland in Farnworth, just off Highfield Road, say firefighters.
Youths gather in the woods in the early hours of the morning and burn 'whatever they can get hold of', says crew manager Mark Hoare.
Mr Hoare said: "We have been called there numerous times - I have been down there three times myself.
"There's fires every night there. We can see seven or eight different spots within 50 yards of each other where fires have been started.
"It is always groups of youths - I am talking teenagers, maybe around 13 or 14-year-old. As soon as we turn up they leg it."
A group was again found just before 1am on Friday morning, this time seizing residents' fence panels to start their blaze.
Mr Hoare said: "They usually drag wheelie bins and use them to start their fires.
"This time it was fence panels. Someone is going to wake up and find out they have no fence.
"When lockdown first started, there were no fires like this. But now they are back out like normal again and these bored kids are just burning whatever they can get hold of."
The frustrated firefighters say the nuisance fires can pull them away from more serious fires.
"What they are doing out at 1am, I don't know. If they are living in the house with parents, why are they allowed to sneak out?" says Mr Hoare.
"It takes our time because we are there in the middle of nowhere having to shuttle buckets of water back and forth and it is a worry in these dry conditions."
