Government owes Greater Manchester more than £1m for the vast emergency response deployed to last summer’s moorland blazes, the M.E.N. can reveal - including for bringing in the army.

The region’s combined authority had to pay out not only for its own heroic firefighters to tackle the vast fires that raged across moors above Tameside and Oldham last June and July, but also for other brigades to be drafted in from across the country.

It also shelled out £70,000 to the Ministry of Defence for soldiers to help with the response, amid fears over just how serious the infernos could become.

Now it has emerged that more than six months later, ministers have not even confirmed that Greater Manchester is eligible to apply for the money back under the emergency Bellwin scheme, which is supposed to reimburse local areas for costs associated with major life-threatening events.

The region’s mayor Andy Burnham has now called on the government to cough up.

“It’s unusual that in an area that experienced an incident - two incidents in fact - of this scale, we are still waiting to hear whether we can access the Bellwin scheme,” he said.

“If you look back at the floods in the home counties, it was immediate.

(Image: PA)

“This wasn’t a regular incident, it was an incident of national or even international scale. That the army were deployed says it all, I think. If you can’t manage without the army, by definition it isn’t a local funding issue.”

When the fires first broke out in Greater Manchester during last summer’s heatwave, the region’s first priority was to get enough firefighters on the ground to put it out, including drafting in brigades from as far away as Northumberland and Gloucestershire.

At one stage United Utilities lent a helicopter to drench the blaze - before, a fortnight in, around 100 soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland were also scrambled.

Firefighters worked round the clock in searing heat to put out the fires, which raged for weeks and came within yards of homes in Saddleworth.

Mr Burnham said it had never felt as though ministers were treating the situation with enough gravity, however.

“I don’t think they ever truly understood the scale of what we were dealing with we have those two fires,” he said.

“For a day or two I can remember feeling pretty worried about how it was going.

“We had the army up and the fires services but I didn’t feel like we had the attention of government. It hasn’t felt like it afterwards.”

Soon after the fires were out, the combined authority presented its estimates to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in a bid to get costs reimbursed through the Bellwin fund.

That pot is used to cover outlays by local bodies in the event of major emergency incidents and disasters where property or lives could be at risk, such as floods and huge fires.

However ministers have not yet confirmed whether the region is even eligible to apply for the fund.

“We had a letter about a fortnight ago saying ‘we’re still looking at it and we will get back to you’,” said Mr Burnham, who added that up until now, he had been dealing with civil servants on the issue in private.

“But we are at the budget-setting process and at the point where we need to know - and at the moment we have got a black hole in the finances.”

An MHCLG spokesperson said: “We can confirm we have received Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s request for funding under the Bellwin Scheme.

“We are considering the application in conjunction with the Home Office, who has responsibility for fire prevention and rescue, and will respond shortly.”

Mr Burnham also spoke out in 2017 when government initially refused to foot the whole bill for the Manchester Arena attack emergency response. It subsequently backtracked and agreed to pay the full amount.