DERBYSHIRE: Blaze smoke seen across county

Anna Melton sent us this picture of the blaze smoke across Chesterfield. See more readers' pictures on the Derbyshire Times Twitter account @D_Times

About 50 firefighters – including crews from Dronfield and Staveley – tackled the massive blaze at the Sheffield Reclaim Ltd plant in Attercliffe on Sunday afternoon.

At its height, a plume of smoke was visible from as far away as Ripley.

Scores of readers took to the Derbyshire Times Facebook and Twitter pages to share dramatic pictures of the smoke cloud.

Mick Carroll Adi said: “It sure was a lot of smoke.”

Ange White added: “I thought we were in for a right thunderstorm.”

And Eric Lowe joked: “Trust Sheffield to put the sun out in Chesterfield!”

The blaze, which broke out just after 2.30pm, destroyed a building containing about 20 tonnes of plastic.

A South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman thanked Derbyshire crews for their help in tackling the blaze.

Incident commander Rick Rolt, of South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “The crews did an absolutely fantastic job.

“We were really worried about the fire spreading to neighbouring buildings –then there would have been lots of potentially hazardous problems and we’d have been looking at evacuations,” he added.

No one was injured in the incident.