The Western Daily Press
WILTSHIRE, U.K. — One firefighter was taken to hospital and fire crews were still battling one of the biggest fires in Wiltshire’s history last night — more than 24 hours after it started.
A couple of “significant hotspots” remained at the blaze at Swindon Metal Solutions, which first broke out on Thursday afternoon.
Fire chiefs said they expected to be still trying to put out the fire well into this morning. In its early stages, the plume of thick black smoke, which filled the sky between Broad Town and Wootton Bassett could be seen up to 25 miles away in the Cotswolds to the west and Salisbury Plain to the south.
At its height, eight fire engines tackled the blaze and one firefighter was taken to hospital suffering from heat exhaustion.
He was kept in overnight but was discharged yesterday morning.
By yesterday afternoon, the number of fire crews tackling the blaze had been reduced to six, and Environment Agency officials were trying to empty two large tankers of waste oil to prevent a bigger fire.
A spokeswoman for the fire brigade said: “The main fire remains within the stack of approximately 1,000 tyres — heavy plant is now on site to break the stack down. It is anticipated that the incident will continue through the night and into Saturday.”
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