Beighton arson attacks: Three fires in three days with bins pushed next to Sheffield homes and torched

A large family home in Meadowgate Drive, Beighton, is in pieces this afternoon after a devastating fire overnight.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue was called to the scene after a 999 at 1.46am this morning (February 25). Dramatic photos show how both cars in the driveway and a pair of garage doors have been destroyed, with the brick work scorched and holes visible in the roof.

A neighbour told The Star: “The flames were so high. It was really scary.

“My partner could hear the glass popping. All our neighbours stood in one of the drives just watching.

“It’s not just the impact it has on you but the way the whole community talks about it.”

It is also the third home in three days that has been targeted - and all within a mile of each other.

Three properties in Beighton and Sothall have now been hit since Sunday, and all in the same way - with a wheelie bin pulled alongside the house and deliberately set ablaze.

Half a mile and 15 minutes’ walk from Meadowgate Avenue is Tynker Avenue, where a house was set alight at 3.40am on Sunday (February 23).

A Tynker Avenue resident, Stacey Gillatt, told The Star how it was sheer luck how her son was awake at 3am and saw the blaze. She said she “shudders to think” what could have happened otherwise. She ran to bang on her neighbour’s door to wake them up while her son called 999.

She said: “I ran to their house and saw the wheelie bin. It was propped up against the house and burning.

“I remember ringing their doorbell again and again, and screaming through the letter box ‘get out, you need to get everyone out’.”

Everyone in the home was able to escape by a rear door and no one was injured. The pathway alongside the house is now strewn with blackened, broken glass.

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue arrived to Tynker Avenue within three minutes of the 999 call at 3.44am.

An hour later, they would be called again.

Just over half a mile from Tynker Avenue is Bramshill Close, where at 5am on February 23, a homeowner looked out their window to see their neighbour’s caravan - and their wheelie bin - had been set ablaze.

The caravan’s owners are a married couple who asked not to be named.

The husband told The Star: “We woke up to banging on the door from a neighbour.

“It was a scramble to get the keys and back the car away from the caravan.

“The fire service was here in minutes but it seems like a lifetime while you think your house might be about to burn down.

“We were fortunate. It looks horrendous but it could have been so much worse.”

The caravan was reduced to ashes in minutes. Black scorch marks now run up the house where a set of trellises were burned away. The couple told The Star the smoke damage inside their home is severe.

The wife said: “The fire caused a gas leak, which has now been capped. And, by some miracle, the fire didn’t cause the two gas bottles in the caravan to go up.

“It’s your worst nightmare.

“I can’t stop thinking of the ‘what ifs’ - what if our neighbour hadn’t been awake, what if it reached the gas main.”

News of all three incidents have been spread widely on social media today, with Beighton and S20 community groups convinced a serial arsonist is on the loose.

More incidents of recent fires are being reported to The Star by the hour. One woman claims how, on February 13, a wheelie bin from a local church was rested on her garden wall, set alight, and spread until it destroyed her outdoor gym.

But, chillingly, it also comes after a spate of deliberate fires in the Beighton area which The Star reported on in August 2024 - which also often involved wheelie bins being set alight.

A serious blaze gutted Woodhouse Court on July 30, 2024, when a bin was deliberately set on fire, with flames spreading indoors.

Another Beighton resident shared how her home in Tye Road had been targeted four times in 2024, starting with someone repeatedly melting the sensor on their electric gate before finally accessing their bike shed and setting fire to their paper recycling bin.

A fence was burned down overnight in Sothall Green on December 20, 2023. Then, overnight on April 13/14, the same homeowner had a polytunnel in their garden set ablaze.

Just before midnight on May 23, a car was set on fire in Manvers Road, and on June 3, at 5am, a garden fence was destroyed nearby.

Referring to the Tynker Avenue and Meadowgate Avenue incidents, a spokesperson for South Yorkshire Police said: “Officers believe that both fires may have been started deliberately and have launched an investigation. Enquiries are ongoing.

“If you have any information that could help officers with their enquiries, please get in touch online, via live chat or by calling 101 quoting incident number 056 of February 25, 2025.”

The Star has asked SYP to comment the fire at Branshill Close and the incident on February 13.

The incidents call to mind the tragic deaths of three people in Batemoor Walk, Sheffield, at Christmastime 2005, when a wheelie bin was allegedly set alight next to their home.

Anthony Brightmore, 68, his wife Patricia, 65, and their blind, disabled son Stephen, 35, all lost their lives in the allegedly deliberate blaze on December 23, 2005.

A 15-year-old boy was arrested and charged over the fire. He was found not guilty of three counts of manslaughter.