FIREFIGHTERS have sung the praises of a passer-by for helping avert a major blaze.

Crews spent nearly two hours tackling a blaze which partially wrecked one shop, threatened another, destroyed the portable office of a third firm and burned out a van.

The quick thinking reaction of a passer-by in calling firefighters to the scene, in Prince Regent Street, Stockton, saved the day.

Station officer Ian Dunning said: "When we got there, we were faced with a rapidly developing fire.

"We attacked it; we managed to stop it. Potentially, it could have taken the whole building away.

"It was due to the vigilance of a passer-by; it was because of his quick actions in calling us that we managed to stop it.

"Another ten minutes and the building would have gone."

Cleveland Police are investigating the blaze, which probably started in a pile of rubbish dumped behind furniture renovation shop Sofa Studio.

Mr Dunning said: "We suspected it started in a pile of rubbish, left out at the back, then spread to a van and portable accommodation. And there was radiated heat damage to a further vehicle.

"I would ask all property owners and tenants not to leave combustible materials next to a building.

"If it is ignited for whatever reason, accidentally or malicious, it will look for a weakness in the fabric of a building. And the weakness here was a duct, which it burned through."