More than 100 firefighters are working to bring under control a large fire at an industrial unit in Essex, near Chelmsford, that broke out on Friday afternoon. What initially appeared to be a local blaze grew significantly through the afternoon, developing into what emergency services described as a serious and ongoing incident that has drawn a major response to the scene.
According to the account given, the fire took hold at an industrial unit on farmland near East Hanningfield, in the countryside close to Chelmsford. The building sits in a rural area between villages, and the scale of the response, with crews numbering more than a hundred, underlined how quickly the situation escalated after the first reports came in during the afternoon.
There were reports online that the fire had triggered an explosion at the site, although the circumstances remain unclear. Thick smoke from the blaze could be seen for miles around, prompting the fire service to advise residents in the surrounding area to keep their windows and doors shut as crews worked to contain the flames and limit the spread of the smoke.
Emergency services urged people to avoid the area completely while the operation continued. Paramedics and police were present alongside the firefighters, and there were concerns over exactly what was burning and what had been stored inside the building. At this stage it was not clear whether anyone had been hurt, with the fire service saying it could not confirm any casualties or fatalities.
It was also not clear what had triggered the fire, which had been burning for a number of hours, or what caused the apparent explosion. Investigators were expected to look into the cause once the blaze was brought under control, but the immediate priority for the crews on the ground was to extinguish the fire and keep it from spreading further across the site.
An eyewitness who filmed the scene by drone said that a number of nearby fields had also caught fire, raising further concern given the recent dry weather that has left some crops tinder dry. With the ground parched after weeks of low rainfall, the risk of the flames spreading across surrounding farmland added to the challenge facing the emergency services as the incident continued into the evening.