Lifeboats called out to fishing boat fire off the coast at Hartlepool

Lifeboat crews were called out this morning to a fishing boat fire off the coast at Hartlepool.

Both Hartlepool RNLI lifeboats were paged at 10.26am on Monday, August 9, following a request by Humber Coastguard which said flares had been fired from a boat.

Within minutes the lifeboats attended the scene where a 21ft coble - open fishing boat -was alight.

The skipper had been taken off by another fishing boat and was uninjured.Both the inshore and all weather lifeboats stood by as a fire fighting tug from the River Tees was requested by the Coastguard to extinguish the fire.

He added: "The inshore lifeboat recovered some debris from the sea."The coble later sank and both boats returned to the Ferry Road lifeboat station at 12.10pm and were refuelled and made ready for service by 12.30pm."