RESIDENTS have described the moment they saw a burning car roll down a terrace street and smash into the front of a house.

The fireball ploughed in to an end-terrace property in Marsden Street, Accrington, around 6.30am yesterday and knocked the front door off its hinges.

The Honda Civic had been parked on the corner of Carter Street at the junction with Richmond Hill Street in the Woodnook area of town when someone smashed the window and torched it.

Firefighters said the car's handbrake snapped and it rolled 40 yards down the steep hill in Carter Street as residents looked on in horror.

Owner of the vehicle Ayesha Akter, 23, said she woke up around 6.15am when she heard someone breaking in to the car.

The mother-of-two said: "It was on fire when I came out and it started rolling down the street. There was nothing I could do.

"I don't know why anyone would do this but there is glass and bits of the car everywhere now."

The heat coming off the Honda was so severe that it broke the glass panels on Mrs Akter's front door a couple of metres away.

Paul Reddington, 31, who lives in Carter Street across from the house the car smashed in to, said it was lucky no one was hurt.

He said: "We watched it roll down the street and then finally come to stop across from us.

"It was on fire when it was coming down the hill. It crossed the path of the fire engine.

"It was just stuck in the front of the house, burning. It's lucky fire crews were there within seconds because otherwise the whole street could have gone up."

Mr Reddington, who lives with wife Joanne, 28, said the last residents of the house moved out a couple of weeks ago and it was now available to rent.

The front door of the property is now boarded up.

A spokesman for Lancashire Fire and Rescue said: "Thankfully, no one was hurt. The car is a wreck."

Police are investigating.