Llandow fire 'contained' at Vale Business Park

The fire at premises owned by Siteserv involves recycled material

A huge blaze at an industrial estate in the Vale of Glamorgan has been "contained" but fire crews could remain at the scene for days.

At one point nearly 90 firefighters were at Siteserv on the Vale Business Park in Llandow on Tuesday.

It is the second fire in less than a month on the estate when a different Siteserv building nearby was destroyed.

The first fire was said to be accidental and investigations into the cause of the second blaze are ongoing.

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service confirmed two seats of fire had been discovered in a building but added no asbestos had been found.

The blaze is said to involve recycled material.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wales on Wednesday, Richard Matheson, fire service area manager and incident commander, said: "We brought the fire under control at quite an early stage but due to the nature of the materials involved, and the amount of materials involved, we'll be committed there for a number of days yet as we break in to the fire to slowly put it out.

"It's a plant that handles recycling materials. There's plastics, there's cardboard, lots of combustible materials and the way they're packaged in bales means that the fire becomes very, very deep-seated very quickly and we can pour all the water on it we like but it will run away unless we get in and actually dig the materials out.

"The structure of the building has collapsed so we used mechanical equipment to remove the sides of the building but that's the sort of thing we can only do during daylight hours, so we'll keep a watching brief on it overnight and during the daylight hours we'll work our way through and extinguish the fire fully in time."

Billowing smoke

Crews from three stations tackled the enormous blaze at old Georgia Pacific buildings at 05:14 GMT on Tuesday.

The fire was so big witnesses said it could be seen from the other side of the Bristol Channel.

The fire broke out just after 05:00 GMT on Tuesday

Smoke billowed from the building as firefighters fought to bring the incident under control.

Around 20 firefighters were still at the scene on Wednesday morning with crews manning three fire engines and a hydraulic platform, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said.

South Wales Police said the estate was closed and cordons were in place, while Vale of Glamorgan council said it would be "distributing further advice regarding the incident as further details become known".

Gareth Morgan, who works on the estate, said: "I have never seen smoke on such a grand scale.

"It's enormous. I personally have never witnessed a fire like that."

Earlier this month a fire on the same estate devastated another building owned by the Siteserv recycling company.

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said Tuesday's blaze was different to the earlier incident.

In a statement Siteserv said: "We are working with both the fire service and police to establish the cause of the fire.

"In the meantime the management team has implemented its disaster recovery plan and otherwise we are operating as usual."