FIRE CREWS battled a van fire outside a McDonalds in Walkden town centre.

The blaze began around 6.00pm this afternoon and fire engines were quickly able to extinguish the flames, although they engulfed the vehicle.

Firefighters asked onlookers to stop cars and traffic appears not to be moving along Manchester Road East.

An ambulance also attended the scene, although nobody was seriously injured.

Tom Gee had been picking up his child from dance class and was driving to Tesco when he noticed smoke coming from the van.

He and another man went up to the vehicle and pulled the doors open to see if anyone was inside.

He said: "I was on Manchester Road going towards Tesco with my partner and my kids and I saw the van on fire.

"We were waiting at the lights and as soon as they changed it went up in flames.

"Me and another guy went over to the van and somebody said that a person was still inside so we both went up to open the door.

"Someone had run to McDonalds to get a fire extinguisher and we couldn't see if there was anyone in there through the window because of the smoke.

"We opened it and there was nobody there but we couldn't see the other side because of the smoke so we ran around to open the other side.

"When we opened the door, there was a massive pop and fire came up from all the electrical stuff in the car."

Mr Gee was not injured although the other man involved sustained a cut to his hand.