STAFF working in offices hit by a fire said it would have been much worse but for the alarm system.
Firefighters arrived at the former chicken hatchery on Blind Lane in Aiskew, near Bedale within minutes of the alarm being sounded at 6.55pm on Monday.
The wooden building is divided into four separate shops and office units. The fire started in a computer repair shop, before spreading to the Dental Shop and then the roof.
It took five fire engines to get the blaze under control. Yesterday Debbie Hall, manager of the Dental Shop, said: "It is business as usual today. We were very lucky to have a very good alarm system. The fire service and the police were here so quickly.
"If we didn't have the alarm system that we do, it probably wouldn't have been business as usual today."
A spokeswoman for the fire service said the cause of the fire was a paper shredder which overheated.
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