RESIDENTS leapt for their lives when they feared a block of flats was about to go up in flames. Tenants at Hamilton Court, Little Lever, thought the worst when teenage firebugs started a blaze which filled their lobby with smoke. Five residents jumped 10ft from first floor flats as they feared the fire would spread to their homes.

But fireman arrived quickly to put out the fierce blaze which had been started in a storeroom next to the flat stairs containing residents' bins.

Terry Barlow, who was staying at the two-storey flats off Market Street with his girlfriend and raised the alarm after spotting smoke, said there was chaos as 20 residents fled the building in night clothes.

He said: "People were really panicking because they just didn't know what to think at that time in the morning."

The fire, started after youths got through a broken security door and ignited the bins with matches at 1am yesterday, temporarily cut off residents' power supply as firemen fought the blaze.

Two flats, the bin storeroom and flat lobby were left badly smoke-damaged by the blaze. But today residents slammed the firebugs as "potential killers" and revealed it was the third time in just over a year that the council block had been targeted.

Mr Barlow, 20, told the BEN: "I don't know why they keep coming here, but I just wish they'd go away. There are lots of families with kids and one day they could be in real danger."

Susan Grundy, 43, whose flat was smoke-damaged, said she stood on her balcony in terror with eight-year-old son Ashley while the fire took hold. "It was just terrible because smoke was starting to get everywhere," she said. "All my walls are covered in black dust."

Stephen Cope, 31, added that residents were sick of the firebugs and called on Bolton Council to fix the broken security door.

"It's time something was done to help us," he said.

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