A FIRE officer has condemned vandals who put pensioners' lives at risk.

An elderly couple had to be evacuated after a blaze in the mid-terrace house next door, filled their home with thick, acrid smoke, in the early hours of Sunday.

Crews called to the scene from Grangetown, Redcar and Middlesbrough were concerned that the flames might spread through the roof void into adjoining houses.

They did not, but smoke from the blaze did.

Station Officer Steve Walton said: "The most worrying point was the time of the fire, which was after midnight. The couple evacuated from next door were elderly and were not in particularly good health.

"It was quite well after midnight and they were potentially put at risk by what appears to have been someone's reckless act."

The arsonist who struck in Granville Road, Grangetown also put the lives of emergency crews at risk as the fire was started in a boarded-up house.

Mr Walton said: "We were confronted by a severe fire which had broken out of a front bay window and had spread through the ceiling into the bedroom above."

After summoning extra help from surrounding stations including a hydraulic platform from Middlesbrough, Mr Walton said they managed to contain the fire to the house.

A giant purpose-built fan was used to clear dense smoke from an empty house adjoining the burning building before it was deemed safe to commit a team into those premises.