CHILDREN making malicious phone calls and wasting firefighters' time have been warned that they will be tracked down.

The warning came after Blackburn Fire and Rescue received three malicious calls in three and a half hours last night.

The first was at 10pm to Queen's Park Road, the next at 12.30am to Whitehead Street and the last at 1.30am to Park Lee Road.

All of them turned out to be hoax calls and firefighters were sent out to them when they could have been needed on more urgent matters.

Leading firefighter Dave Hilliard said: "We don't know whether they were linked. We have listened to the voice on the calls again, as they are all recorded, and they are different voices. But this doesn't mean they aren't linked.

"One was made from a mobile phone and two from phone boxes. We think we know who made the first call."