Fire breaks out at Dimmer landfill site

One eyewitness took a picture of the blaze at its peak

A major blaze has broken out at a landfill site in Somerset.

Firefighters have spent the night tackling the fire at Dimmer near Castle Cary, where 10m (33ft) of the site was alight.

People living nearby have been warned to keep windows shut and stay inside, however there is no risk to public health, the site's owners said.

Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service was called to the 200m landfill site by staff at around 16:00 BST on Saturday.

Incident commander Martin Lock said: "We're not directly putting it out at present.

'Frightening'

"The reason for that is that we need to liaise closely with the site owners [Virador] and to formulate a plan now that we have daylight available to us.

"Overnight it was necessary to scale back and to prevent the fire from escalating, which we have done."

Mr Lock said conditions for crews were "not particularly very pleasant" and conditions underfoot were also "extremely arduous".

Another eyewitness pictured a large plume of smoke

Eyewitness Cameron Pattison, who lives near Castle Cary, tweeted the billowing smoke was a "little frightening".

The site's owners, Virador, said in a statement all staff were accounted for and the "developing surface fire" was contained within a waste cell on the site.

"This contained incident occurred in a landfill cell currently used for the reception of waste," spokesman Martin Grey added.

"With the site managing non-hazardous domestic and trade waste, there is no risk to public health."

Mr Grey said the Environment Agency had been notified and incoming waste at the site would be diverted until services were restored.