FIREFIGHTERS could soon charge for rescuing a cat stuck up a tree under new Government proposals being considered by fire chiefs.

Under the proposals, firefighters could charge for clearing up after chemical spillages, domestic or commercial flooding, attending false alarms or rescuing people stuck in lifts in Bolton.

The Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority is looking at the document produced by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott which could force people and companies to pay firefighters to attend non life-threatening incidents.

The authority confirmed at a meeting held this week that it was considering the charges, and is due to give an official response to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister by May 7.

Ian Bailey, spokesman for the fire authority, said: "Fire Service authorities across the country are considering charging for special service incidents.

"For instance we get called out to a lot of chemical incidents, and once we have made that incident safe there is no danger to life. If we are then asked to clean up that spillage then there is potential to charge for our services.

"If we rescue people stuck in a lift and there is no threat to life to those people stuck inside, we could charge companies to get those people out. They could contact a contract lift engineer instead of us.

"If we go to a flooding incident and again there is no danger of loss of life, then we could charge for attending such incidents."

Fire chiefs stressed though that they would not charge for extinguishing blazes or saving lives and property from life-threatening incidents.

Mr Bailey said: "It is important for people to realise that in an emergency situation we will not charge for attending. People should not be put off from dialling 999 in such a situation, we don't want to create the wrong impression. We're here to fight fires and save lives."