BBC admit Top Gear caravan blaze was a fake

The episode showed presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May taking the caravan on a trip to Dorset, with the blaze erupting after Clarkson began cooking some chips at a campsite.

Viewers saw a fire engine race into the site, with sirens wailing, as if the crew faced a real emergency - but the fire service involved have confirmed that the entire scene was set up.

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Top Gear producers had contacted the brigade several weeks before filming - and paid about £1,000 to have six crew members and an engine on standby for the stunt.

The BBC said that viewers would not have been misled as it was obvious that the sequence was "slapstick" with a "sitcom ending".

The stunt, filmed at a campsite in Tolpuddle, formed part of a sequence called Four Go Mad In Dorset.

It was broadcast as part of a Top Gear episode in July last year.

The film also featured the three presenters being stopped by police after causing a lengthy tailback as they try to turn the caravan on a main road, crashing the caravan into a bollard and backing the caravan into a tent.

The climax of the show, which regularly attracts audiences of around 5.3 million, comes when Clarkson attempts to cook the chips inside the caravan while May and Hammond sit outside.

Clarkson yells: "How do you put a pan fire out?"

Then he tells them: "It's no longer a pan fire, it's a van fire."

There is an explosion and the men start trying to put out the flames with foam mattresses, which also catch light.

Then the fire engine arrives to deal with the "emergency".

The final scene shows the trio driving off towing the burnt-out shell.

A Dorset Fire Service spokeswoman said: "They wanted us to make it look real. We treated it as a genuine fire."

A BBC spokeswoman said: "It was Top Gear taking a comedy look at caravanning. Of course the fire service was on site. We wouldn't contemplate starting a fire without having relevant safety measures in place."

The revelation comes after criticism of editorial standards at the BBC.

The Corporation has admitted that phone-in competitions have been faked and the sequence of events changed in footage of both the Queen and Gordon Brown.

Top Gear's faked caravan scenes...(taken from the BBC's Top Gear)