Roads reopen after large industrial estate fire

Roads have been reopened after crews tackled a fire at a town's industrial estate.

Crews were called to Earlstrees Industrial Estate in Corby at about 04:15 BST, where two units were well alight, Northamptonshire Fire Service said.

Roads around the site have reopened except for a small section of Princewood Road, which remains closed to allow firefighters access to water to damp down.

Eyewitness, JA Mills, said the plume of smoke looked "massive", and a whole building could have been destroyed.

Another eyewitness said the plume could be seen about nine miles (14km) away from Uppingham in Rutland.

The smoke was expected to affect businesses and residents "for some time", so they had been advised to keep windows and doors shut, the fire service said.

It confirmed some nearby buildings had been evacuated.

Matt Butler, group commander for the fire service said the building was empty at the time, no-one was hurt and cordons in the area would be reviewed throughout the day.

"We can now confirm the fire is under control; it's affected two businesses on this industrial unit," he said.

"Due to the professionalism of the firefighters we've manged to prevent further fire spread to the surrounding businesses and protect the community."

On Tuesday morning, he said firefighters would remain at the scene for "at least the next 48 hours managing the incidents".

The fire service said nine appliances had been at the scene, including crews from neighbouring counties.

The cause of the blaze was not yet known and a full investigation would be carried out, Mr Butler added.

Kym Wheeler lives close to the fire and road closures.

"It's a fairly new unit; it used to be a bakers, but it's been taken over by someone else and they've been putting new cladding and such like on the outside," she said.

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