A TEENAGER has died after a firework exploded in his face -- prompting an urgent warning about highly explosive devices believed to be responsible for a series of incidents throughout East Lancashire.

The death comes a day after Trading Standards officers and fire chiefs issued a warning about the dangers of highly explosive fireworks.

Police are investigating links between the death and an incident when a firework blew apart a Ford Fiesta car in Windermere Avenue, Huncoat, on Monday night and another when a telephone kiosk in Dill Hall Lane, Church, was blown up by a firework on Saturday night.

Today a road between Briercliffe Road and Colne Road, Duke Bar, Burnley, between the Duke of York pub and St Andrew's Church was cordoned off after the body of a man was discovered at 3.25am.

The dead youth is an 18-year-old from Burnley but police have not released his name because relatives have still to be informed.

Trading Standards officers are investigating the possibility that the fireworks, which may have been imported for professional displays only, are part of an unsafe rogue batch and how they were made available to the public.

Det Supt Graham Gooch said: "This is a tragic waste of a young life and it brings home the need to be so careful particularly with this type of high explosive which has to be fired from a tube. "It is ironic that this should have happened only hours after the county's Trading Standards Officer and our colleagues from the fire service issued a warning about the dangers of these devices. I can only repeat that warning that this kind of firework is lethal as we have so tragically discovered here in Burnley today."

Police said it is understood the Burnley youth had set one of the large incendiary devices off and was examining a second which had failed to explode when it went off in his face.

David Brown, the deputy chief officer at Lancashire Trading Standards, said: "It sounds to us as if a rogue batch of fireworks which were not meant for public sale has found its way on to the streets.

"We are launching an immediate inquiry, working with police, to find out where they came from and why they are being sold to the public.

"Tragically, this fatality proves just how dangerous fireworks can be, especially when people are using more complex ones which should not be available to the public."

He added: "In cases where fireworks have been sold incorrectly, we often find that the people involved are selling out of the backs of vans or at shops not registered with us.

"People should only buy them from shops which are licensed to sell them."

A gang of youths are believed to be behind the incident in Huncoat, which followed a weekend of problems with fireworks, including cases of fireworks being pushed through shutters, letterboxes and postboxes.

Despite the fact fireworks only legally went on sale last week, the Fire Service across East Lancashire has been inundated with calls about the malicious of use of what is supposed to be a restricted-sale item.