SIXTY fire-fighters tackled one of Lancaster's biggest blazes for years on Monday as the city's controversial Fats and Proteins UK plant went up in smoke.

Flames ripped through the animal rendering plant on Quernmore Road, sending acrid black smoke billowing across the city.

As the Citizen went to press, loss adjusters for the company were at the scene trying to assess the damage, while fire investi-gators were trying to discover what caused the ferocious blaze.

Security staff raised the alarm shortly after 7am on Monday. But such was the nature of the blaze that fire-fighters could not send anyone into the burning buildings until they had been declared safe.

None of the 45 staff were in the plant at the time but had the fire started an hour later it could have been a different story.

The first fire-fighters on the scene summoned extra engines to the factory, and at the height of the blaze eight pumps were in attendance along with a platform ladder, an incident support unit, a control unit and the county's environmental protection unit.

"There was serious damage caused and at one stage there was a danger of collapse of one of the buildings," says Lancaster fire station watch manager Kevin Huggonson.

"They are mainly metal structures and when the temperature reaches 600 degrees they can buckle and collapse but that thankfully didn't happen."

He goes on: "However, we had to be careful and called in a city council building inspector to assess the safety of the building and he said it was not safe for us to send men in.

"We fought the blaze from the exterior and made sure that it didn't spread."

A 500-metre exclusion zone was set up around the factory, known locally as Nightingale Hall Farm, after fire officers discovered an acetylene cylinder in the burning building.

Residents on the nearby Ridge Estate and Quernmore Road were told to stay indoors and keep their windows closed as smoke drifted across the city, while children at Central Lancaster High School, the Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Ridge Primary got an unscheduled day away from lessons as the schools were closed for the day.

A spokesman for the company declined to put an estimated figure on the damage but Claire Bonner says: "The loss adjusters are on site trying to establish the damage.

"It was certainly a serious fire but we cannot predict what caused it."

The factory has been at the centre of numerous complaints about smells from the building where animal products are rendered down.

Ms Bonner adds: "Someone has to deal with the process and there is no health hazard from the smell from the building."

Fire-fighters were still at the scene yesterday (Tuesday).