FIREFIGHTERS worked throughout yesterday to tackle a serious blaze at a County Durham factory.
Peterlee fire officers were called to BPB, at Thornley Station Industrial Estate, Shotton Colliery, just before 9am to a report of a paper fire.
They arrived to find 50 tonnes of baled waste paper alight, with flames shooting high into the air and the factory shrouded in smoke.
After two pumps were initially dispatched, one returned to the station leaving the other to tackle the blaze for the rest of the day.
Leading fire officer Neil Hartley said: "No one knows how the fire started.
"It might have been that the plastic used to bind the paper overheated and caught fire."
Nobody is thought to have been in the building when the blaze broke out.
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