PETROL thieves are putting the lives of people in Kidderminster at risk with a series of fuel line cutting incidents, firefighters have warned.

About 20 litres of petrol leaked into a drain in a residential street in the latest incident and could easily have been ignited by a discarded cigarette, the fire service said.

Firefighter Grant Wills said firefighters in Kidderminster had been called out to deal with six similar incidents so far this month.

He said: "This is not unusually high, it's sometimes higher. This is a very, very serious situation. It won't be realised by the public until something goes horribly wrong.

"Fuel doesn't mix with water, it just sits on top of it. With that quantity if someone went past and discarded a cigarette they would have blown themselves up."

Firefighters attended the scene of the latest incident, in St Cecilias Close, near the Hoobrook flats, following a call at 11.07pm on Sunday, May 27.

Members of the fire crew pumped out a drain which had filled up with around 20 litres of petrol from a nearby Vauxhall Cavalier whose fuel line had been severed.

"We were lucky in that we were able to deal with it ourselves," said Mr Wills. "Anything more complicated and we would have had to call in the Environment Agency and that would have involved extra costs."

But he said by tying up a pump in this way, those responsible could be putting lives at risk as the stand-by crew took longer to scramble, resulting in a slower response time.

He added thieves were targeting particular models as they found it easier to find the fuel lines on certain brands of car.

He said: "The safety of people in Kidderminster is being jeopardised by these people."