Fire crews fought to stop a barn blaze in Shropshire spreading to a tanker containing 3,000 litres of aviation fuel today.They were called out to Ashdale House, Ash Road, Whitchurch, at about 5am where a building storing 35 tonnes of baled straw and hay had caught fire.

Firefighters battled throughout the morning to bring the flames under control and were expected to remain at the site throughout the day.

Sub-officer Mike Beach, of Whitchurch fire station, said an investigation was under way into how the fire started. Mr Beach said work would continue today to excavate the hay and straw from the barn and damp it down.

He said the property was owned by Henry Harding, who owns the Colour Supplies chain of stores.

“It’s a single storey building containing approximately 25 tonnes of baled hay, 10 tonnes of baled straw and a large quantity of barbecues that were being stored here because this gentleman owns a company called Colour Supplies, which is a chain of hardware stores,” said Mr Beach.

“We have also got a tank at the side of the building containing approximately 3,000 litres of aviation fuel because he used to have a helicopter.

“So obviously that was a concern to me when we first got here we had to get some ground monitors up and running as quickly as we could. The building itself was keeping the fire away from the tank.

“The first thing we had to do was get water on that tank, we had a lot to do in a short period of time.

“There was nine of us initially and Prees were soon here. We soon got the resources here.

“It just takes a little while to get things going, to get things in place that we want.

“We did that very very successfully and everything’s gone very well.”

Mr Beach said three main jets and two hose reel jets were used and the light pumping unit from Shrewsbury was also called out.

Firefighters from Whitchurch and Prees also used water from a pool on site and a nearby hydrant to help put the blaze out.

“The straw is going to be more difficult to excavate because the building roof has collapsed,” added Mr Beach. “Nobody was injured and there were no animals involved.”

By Deborah Collins