A BLAENAU Gwent ice cream man was afraid a fire could have injured his customers, including young children, after his tyre was deliberately set alight.

Iain O’Hara, 47, of Nantyglo discovered the wheel of his ice cream van was alight while serving customers at Keeper’s Pond on Sunday, June 5 at around 12.30pm.

After noticing the deliberately-started fire, the vendor realised the severity of the situation and his concern grew for the youngsters surrounding his van.

South Wales Argus:

“My fear was that I was serving young children at the time, some of them as young as two. If that gas compression had gone up, I would have been injured and the children too,” said Mr O’Hara, pictured.

“As I was serving the customers, a number of bikers were at the side of the van and one of them said to me ‘do you know your van is on fire?'

“I said ‘don’t be so stupid, I’m in the van’ and I just thought he was joking. He repeated himself two or three times so eventually I looked out of the window, at the wing mirror and saw there was a fire,” added Mr O’Hara, who also has pitches in Ebbw Vale and Tredegar.

“I got out of the vehicle and called the fire brigade. They were about two minutes away and advised me to get everyone a safe distance away from the flames,” he said.

The vendor has sold ice creams on and off since 1999 and despite minor incidents of criminal damage, this is the first fire he has experienced in that time.

“Fortunately the van still works but it has done major damage to the freezers and chillers so I’m not sure how long that will be the case for,” he said.

A Gwent Police spokeswoman said: “The ice cream van vendor was serving customers when he was made aware that fire lighters had been placed and lit near to one of his tyres causing damage to the vehicle.

“If you saw anything suspicious or have any information relating to this please call 101 quoting log 280 05/06/16.”