FIRE crews spent more than a hour bringing a deliberately started blaze under control in the hills near Llangollen.

The incident happened shortly before 10pm on Monday, when a member of the public spotted the flames while driving away from the area around Castell Dinas Bran.

Sherrif O'Kaya, who works in a take-away in Acrefair, but lives in Ruabon, said he goes for walks in the area regularly and initially thought the smoke he could see was being created by local farmers or people camping in the wild.

He said: "My friend and I went walking and had stopped near to the castle for some coffee.

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Stills of a video, above and below, captured by Sheriff O'Kaya show the gorse land burning near Castell Dinas Bran

"When we drove off towards Llangollen, we saw the smoke, but it was only when we got closer we realised it was actually the bushes on fire, so I stopped and immediately called 999."

Mr O' Kaya also took a video of the fire, which he said he wanted to share widely in the hope it reminds people of the dangers posed by deliberately setting fires on exposed areas of hillside.

He added: "We couldn’t believe how could someone do this. It’s not a good sight to be seeing, but at least it’s safe and fair play to the firemen for staying around and checking all around to make sure it was safe."

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In incident is a timely reminder of the fires that burned on the Llantysilio hillside for 30 days last summer.

A spokesman for North Wales Fire and Rescue Service confirmed they were called at 21.49pm to reports of a gorse fire and one appliance managed to bring the flames under control in just over an hour.

They said: "I can confirm it was a deliberate ignition and covered a 30 metre squared area of land. The fire was brought under control and the crew left the scene at 22.59pm."