At 13:08 today the team was contacted by the North West Ambulance Service to respond to a potential balloon crash in the vicinity of Darwen Moor.

A member of the public had seen a balloon descend quickly from the opposite side of Darwen and had alerted the emergency services.

Team member Paul Brain was the first person at the rendezvous point at the Sunnyhurst Inn, meeting up with the assembled Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service appliances and NWAS HART team, along with the informant who had reported the crash. Whilst a better idea of the potential crash site was being ascertained, one of the Lancashire Fire & Rescue firefighters found the landing site and confirmed with the balloon pilot it had been a controlled landing and there were no injuries.

The responding Mountain Rescue LandRovers were stood down.

In total 20 Bolton Team Members were responding to this incident. 5 Mountain Rescue Team Members were also responding from Rossendale & Pendle Mountain Rescue Team.

This is another example of multi-agency working with the North West Ambulance Service, HART, Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service, the North West Air Ambulance and National Police Air Service  all involved in this incident.