A WORKER suffered burns when petrol fumes caught light in an engineering yard, destroying three cars and damaging part of the building.

The 23-year-old man had been siphoning petrol from one of the cars at FAM Engineering, Hollybank Street, Radcliffe, when the incident happened at about midday yesterday.

He suffered superficial burns to his right arm and firefighters treated him with specialist dressings before paramedics took him to Fairfield Hospital, Bury, for a check-up.

Crew manager Steve Hoyles, of Bury Fire Station, said: "We are still investigating the cause of the fire but somehow the fumes have ignited. It was quite a severe fire. The man was decanting the fuel at the time, so he was quite lucky.

"The vehicles were right next to the building. The flames went up the corrugated steel facade and the office was directly behind.

"Fire cracked the office windows and it was smoke-logged, but we got there just in time so the fire didn't spread."

A forklift truck being used to stack the cars was damaged in the blaze.