The weekly Accrington Observer has achieved the best sales figure in its 119-year history.

Latest figures show that the issue of November 3 sold 16,179 copies on the back of the tragic story of the mother and four daughters who died in a house fire which police believe may have been started by the girls’ father.

It is the first time the paper has sold more than 16,000 copies and is way above its latest ABC figure of 15,148.

The incident occurred in the early hours of the Wednesday morning and editor Mervyn Kay took the decision to print the paper early so it was on the newsagents’ shelves first thing Thursday morning alongside the nationals and regionals, many of which also splashed on the story.

This meant reporters and photographers, co-ordinated by news editor Stephanie Turner, working on the story thoughout the day and well into the evening to produce a dramatic front page and three inside pages on the tragedy.

Mervyn said: “We were fortunate to be given an overnight slot at our Oldham printing plant where the Daily Mirror and Manchester Evening News are also printed and we were on sale by 6am instead of the usual 3pm.

“It was a marvellous team effort by everyone including production and newspaper sales.

“The result was really professional and we even had praise from the family of the victims who said how sensitively we had handled the story.”

The exercise was repeated the following week when the family’s funeral was held on a Wednesday and another huge sale is expected.

The Observer has bucked the industry trend by recording six successive half-yearly circulation rises in the ABC figures.