A BLAZE last night gutted the kitchen and dining room of a popular Darlington pub.

At its height, flames from the Old Farmhouse on Yarm Road turned the night sky orange, while a pall of smoke, several hundred feet high, drifted towards Teesside.

The fire began in a grill pan in the kitchen shortly before 8.30pm and quickly spread to the roof.

Witnesses said that a kitchen worker had tried unsuccessfully to tackle the blaze using two extinguishers and a fire blanket.

Once it became clear that the blaze was spreading, staff and diners at the pub, on the A67 between Morton Park, Darlington, and Middleton-St-George, were quickly evacuated. No one was injured.

Eight fire crews from Darlington, Newton Aycliffe, Bishop Auckland, Durham and Peterlee attended with an aerial ladder, and environment protection unit staff.

Divisional Officer Andie Mackay said that the original farmhouse part of the pub had been saved after water jets were set up to stop the flames spreading.

"We confined the fire to about 50 per cent of the property - the kitchen and the dining room. We directed water in from either side to protect the main building," he said.

The fire was brought under control by 10pm although several crews remained overnight damping down.

Investigators are examining the possibility that it may have spread through the kitchen's extraction system.

Staff at the pub, which underwent a £50,000 refurbishment in 2002, and a representative of the brewery Mitchell and Butler, who was at the scene, declined to comment.

Richard Fielden, who lives in nearby Hurworth Moor, was driving past with 11-year-old daughter Rebecca.

He said: "Rebecca noticed the smoke at 8.30pm and when we came back at 9 o'clock the sky was orange," he said.

An investigation into the cause of the fire will get under way today.

* Fire stations around the UK were taking unofficial industrial action last night following suspensions in Salford.

An FBU source said that in response to the suspensions many stations were only taking 999 calls.

Areas affected include parts of the West Midlands and Strathclyde, all West Yorkshire, all of Wiltshire, all Gloucestershire and all of Somerset.

Avon and Cornwall was expected to suffer similar action from tomorrow morning.

Firefighters in Norfolk and Kent had already refused to answer anything but emergency calls following the breakdown of pay talks last week.

An FBU spokesman insisted the action was unofficial.

He added: ''Official action being taken since last week at local level is that we have withdrawn form all negotiations to do with the agreement reached in June last year which brought the dispute to an end.''

He said it followed the failure of employers to pay the outstanding 3.5% the FBU claims its members have been owed since November.

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