TWO passers-by leapt on to a blazing narrow boat to cut free two other vessels at risk from the flames.

Police praised the actions of the public-spirited pair at Wootton Rivers on Friday afternoon.

Despite the efforts of a dozen Pewsey and Marlborough firefighters, some of them wearing breathing apparatus, the narrow boat was gutted in the blaze and later sank. It is understood the owners live in Berkshire.

Plumbing and heating engineer Nigel Bates, from Elcot Lane in Marlborough, had just finished working at a house in Wootton Rivers at 4pm when he saw smoke pouring from the 34ft long narrow boat.

Father-of-two Mr Bates, 36, saw another man trying to release the ropes mooring two other boats to the blazing wooden hulled craft.

He said: "I was walking over the canal bridge when I saw that one of the boats was on fire.

"There was an elderly gentleman desperately trying to move the other two boats to safety away from the flames. We couldn't get the knots undone on the mooring ropes so we cut the ropes and pulled the other two boats clear.

"There was nothing we could do with the boat which was on fire because it was burning so fiercely. If anybody had been on board they would have perished by then."

The fire on board the boat created so much smoke and flames it could be seen by firefighters from Pewsey as they left the village and drove through Fyfield.

Leading fireman Chris Wootton said: "When we arrived someone had cut the mooring ropes and moved two boats away from it otherwise the fire would have spread to them because the burning boat was alight from end to end.

"There was little we could do because the whole superstructure of the boat burned away and then it collapsed. By the time the fire was out the boat had virtually sunk ."

Mr Wootton said the brigade was hampered by the fact that the burning boat's mooring ropes had burned through and the pressure of their water hoses pushed the craft to the opposite side of the Kennet and Avon Canal.

The fire brigade believe the fire was probably started by an electrical short circuit on the unoccupied boat which it is believed belonged to a canal enthusiast from the Reading area.

Mr Wootton said the firefighters were surprised by the intensity of the blaze and later found it was due to pipes leading to on-board propane gas cylinders burning through. He said: "A propane cylinder had been left turned on and from what we could see the heat must have melted the regulator which resulted in a flow of propane fuelling the fire."

Sgt John Coppen, senior officer at Pewsey, said: "We are satisfied that this fire was accidental and was not of a suspicious nature."