A FIRE broke out in Middlesbrough's town hall today.

People were evacuated as the main hall in the Victorian building became heavily smokelogged.

The fire, which involved two curtains, was quickly put out.

A council spokesman said that a handful of people who worked in that area of the building needed to be evacuated.

"It was very minor,'' said the council spokesman.

A spokeswoman for the Cleveland Fire Brigade said: "There were three appliances at the scene: that has now been scaled down to two. The incident is still on going and so we don't have further details. But there is heavy smoke logging.

"We were called at 12:12pm, and there was a report of persons inside, but everyone has been accounted for. We used two breathing apparatus, one hose reel and a thermal imagining camera.''