ENGINEERS were ­today carrying out more safety checks ­after cable thieves started a series of house fires and caused power blackouts.

Detectives are hunting the reckless thieves who broke into a substation and took three metres of copper wire, said to be worth £40.
A family, including two young children, had to flee their home in Devon Road, Greenock around 4am yesterday.
A 28-year-old man was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.
Most of the 280 homes which were blacked out had electricity restored last night.
Fewer than 20 residential properties were still without power this morning but ScottishPower was confident electricity would be available to every householder later today.
A spokesman for the energy giant said: “The vast majority of homes we were able to reconnect yesterday.
“The network in the area is fully restored, but there were some properties we could not get access to yesterday, so we have engineers in the area again today.
“Engineers will also be carrying out some further checks in some homes this morning.”
Three other homes, in Cambridge Road and Burns Road, were ­affected by minor fires.
The firm has offered a reward of £10,000 to anyone with information that leads to a conviction.