Police established a 100m safety cordon on Thursday evening round a burning tyre, battery and exhaust business on the Spring Lane Industrial Estate in Malvern.

The factory is the premises of Auto Tyre and Battery.

Flames took told shortly after 7.30pm.

The cordon was established after fire officers found cylinders on the premises and began to remove them.

Eighteen workers at Skot Transformers were evacuated, as firefighters sprayed the building to stop the flames spreading from Auto Tyre and Battery next door.

Skot Transformers managing director David Parkinson was on holiday in Spain but was phoned throughout the night regarding the situation. He said: "I want to thank the fire brigade for their prompt and valiant efforts. Thankfully the flames did not spread to us."

Fire officers drove a number of vehicles away from the site, out of danger, as flames leapt into the sky.

Dan Blake, aged 13, said: "We were at Sea Cadets in the unit behind the tyre factory tonight when we were told there was a fire and we had to be evacuated from our building. "There were lots of people coming down to watch the fire. There were gas canisters exploding. It wasn't scary as the fire brigade and police got there quickly."

Another witnesses, Kathy Grubb of the Excel Showroom, just three door away from the factory said: "It was really quite frightening. Flames were a good 10ft above the roof."

Students at the nearby Worcester Technical College across the road had to be evacuated.

Leigh Phillips, who attends a building construction course there said: "Police said they were putting a 100m exclusion zone in place and the college had to close.

"Outside you could not see the road. There was very thick, black smoke. You could see maybe five yards. That was about it.

"Then flames started lapping from the top of the factory building and smoke started to funnel up into the air."

Jon Hale, of Broadlands Drive, a partner of Hado Polythene, said that at about 7pm he was at home and heard what sounded like fireworks - he later realised this was the sound of batteries going off.

He went down to the estate to check on his own business, and the batteries were still popping at 7.54pm. Mr Hale said he had heard the fire was spotted by police officers making a routine patrol of the estate.

The 32m by 22m building was reported to the heavily smoke-logged and at least 50 per cent of the building was badly damaged by flames.

Four fire engines were on the scene, together with an aerial ladder and a water carrier.

Fire fighters also had to use breathing apparatus because of the choking smoke.

A Ledbury crew was also called to the scene for damping down operations, but was told it was not required.

Operations were still ongoing on Friday morning.

Tracy Hawthorne, office manager at Triune Precision Engineering, said "We came in this morning and found bits of rubber from tyres everywhere. At first we thought they were moss, but when we picked them up, they were still warm. Bits of tyres had been raining all over the estate."

8:40am Friday 9th May 2008

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