A FIRE that ripped through an East Yorkshire storage depot was continuing to blaze today.

At its height about 175 firefighters and 25 appliances were needed to tackle the blaze at the Bartoline paint storage depot in Beverley.

The drama started at about 9.45am with an explosion, followed by a huge blaze.

Inspector Steve Page, of Humberside Police, said: "A very large blaze erupted with further smaller explosions as officers from the blue light services arrived at the scene.

"It was believed accelerants were on fire." About 40 workers from the plant and 200 from the surrounding Swinemoor Industrial Estate were evacuated.

Insp Page said: "This declared major incident had all public service partners present, including blue light services, local authority, Environment Agency and health authorities monitoring the situation."

Everyone was evacuated from the building, despite earlier fears that two builders working in the building were missing and possibly trapped.

A plume of black smoke rising from the burning building could be seen 15 miles away, with emergency services yesterday advising residents to stay indoors and close all doors and windows. The smoke was described as non-toxic, but unpleasant.

Fire crews from Market Weighton and Goole fire stations joined colleagues from both sides of the River Humber to tackle the fire.

Firefighters from Pocklington were on stand-by and covered the Market Weighton area to support the other crews.

Today three appliances were still needed at the scene to damp down and turn over the damaged area.

During the night the fire was under control, but 50,000 litres of kerosene oil were still on fire, with small pockets of fire continuing to blaze within the building today.

Investigations will begin once the fire has finally been put out, said Humberside Fire Service control officer Steve Bone.

Updated: 09:46 Saturday, May 24, 2003