Firefighters called out to West Yorkshire’s prisons 70 times since April

And during July alone the fire service responded to reports of 14 blazes in the areas secure units.

The figures were revealed during a recent meeting of West Yorkshire Fire Authority, when Councillors from across the region were told that many of the deliberate fires in the Leeds area took place in prisons such as Armley.

Area Manager Scott Donegan told members of West Yorkshire Fire Authority’s Community Safety Committee that the fore was working with the prison service to try to bring down the number of call outs – which require the attendance of multiple fire crews.

He said: “Unsurprisingly a lot of these deliberate fires are in the Leeds area.

“We’re working with the prison service to understand what’s going on.

“Sometimes it might be prisoners looking to settle debts, or prisoners who are attempting to be moved to another cell – they think lighting their cell on fire will help that.

“These fires very rarely cause injury.”