An 80-year-old woman has died in a fire at her home in Cornwall after a cigarette set light to furniture.

Neighbours broke down the door of her home in St Just, Penzance, when they saw smoke.

A crew from a retained fire station put out the furniture fire, but say the woman was already dead after breathing in fumes.

It brings to six the total number of deaths in house fire-related incidents since the second national dispute began on Friday, but police believe a fatal blaze in Coventry may have been suspicious.

Explosion fear

Military crews are dealing with a major fire involving burning tyres at a mill in Corporation Road, Rochdale.

Motorists are being advised to avoid the area, but nobody has been hurt.

Overnight, military crews helped evacuate a number of homes at Halifax and Oldham, but there were no fatalities.

A soldier cleans up after a fire on Tyneside

A red engine turned out at about 0430 GMT to help soldiers at the three-storey block in Canterbury Crescent, Halifax, West Yorkshire.

Six residents were helped to safety while a seventh man was rescued from the top floor.

And people living near to an MOT centre in Oldham had to be evacuated as a precaution after it was thought gas cylinders might explode.

A spokesman for the MoD said: "No one was injured but it was quite a serious fire.

"The building is now well burnt out."

Elsewhere on Saturday night, soldiers rescued a man from a house fire in Blackpool, while another man was helped to safety from his home in York.

Both men were taken to hospital, where their conditions are said to be "stable".

Also in Greater Manchester, 30 soldiers in five Green Goddesses continued to fight a fire at a tyre storage depot in Levenshulme that they were first called to at 2200 GMT Saturday.

Tyre blaze

By Sunday morning it was said to be still producing a lot of smoke.

Four Green Goddesses also put out a blaze at a tyre dump in nearby Stockport.

In Kent, troops were joined by striking firefighters at about 0300 GMT to help put out a blaze at a workshop in Chartham Hatch, Canterbury.

There were no reports of anyone in the building.

Striking crews in Leeds look for public support

Troops covering East and West Sussex, Surrey and Kent received a total of 30 calls overnight, but these were mostly car fires and minor incidents.

In East Anglia, there were no major emergencies but troops attended 14 car fires and other minor incidents.

And in London, soldiers have dealt with 500 call outs since the strike began, with 108 hoaxes.

Overnight, they dealt with 14 domsetic fires, including a blaze that blocked the A4 in West Kensington, central London, for some time.

Meanwhile Warwickshire police are continuing to investigate an arson attack on the home of a firefighter in Kenilworth who had just left his wife and children to stand on the picket line in Leamington Spa.

Burning paper was pushed through his front door early on Saturday, but smoke alarms alerted the family and they managed to extinguished the blaze with a garden hose.

An MoD spokesman said military personnel had responded to 1,427 emergency calls during Saturday.

These broke down to 924 fire incidents, 151 other events and 352 false alarms.