THE father of three young sisters killed in a tragic house fire almost a year ago said today the family were still waiting for answers.

Barry Waddington and his wife Jayne have still not been told exactly what caused the blaze which killed Louise, Hayley and Gemma -- after a year of anguish.

And the grieving parents are also still waiting for an inquest to be held into the deaths.

The East Lancashire Coroner, Richard Taylor, has opened and adjourned an inquest but no full hearing will take place until the investigation into the fire is complete.

The probe is centred on the Waddington's tumble dryer -- but the exact cause of what sparked the fire is still a mystery.

Barry, 41, a taxi driver, said he and Jayne would find it hard to move on with their lives until they had gone through the pain of an inquest.

He said: "We know the fire was probably caused by the tumble dryer, but we are still waiting to find out the precise cause.

"The sooner an inquest can be held the better so we can start to move on. We both want to get it over with because it is dragging on.

"We know an inquest is going to be hard because it will just bring everything back and we will have to relive it all, but the longer the waiting goes on the worse it is going to be."

Eleven-year-old Louise, 10 year-old Hayley and Gemma, seven, were in the modern terrace house in Lancaster Drive, Padiham, when the fire started just after 11.30pm on Friday, February 6 last year.

Neighbours were alerted to cries for help from the girls and their mother who tried in vain to get them out of the house.

Jayne, 44, managed to escape by jumping from an upper window of the property before emergency crews arrived.

Fire crews rescued one of the girls from the downstairs of the property and two from the upstairs.

First Aid was given to the girls and they were taken to Burnley General Hospital, but were dead on arrival. East Lancashire Coroner's officer Bob Wilson said a date for a full inquest would be set when the investigation was complete.

Work is continuing on a memorial garden for the sisters on a patch of land near the family's Lancaster Drive home.

The overgrown land will be transformed into a garden featuring rose trees, a bench, plants and paving stones with footprints on them. A cherry blossom tree will be the centrepiece.

The paving stones will have footprints on them because the first poem Jayne read after the girls' deaths was Footprints In The Sand. Classmates from Padiham Primary School will be invited to plant the rose trees.