FIVE fire engines were called to the United Milk dairy in Westbury on Saturday after a fire broke out in its powdered milk plant.

Fire crews were alerted to the fire at the dairy in Westbury's White Horse Business Park at 4.42pm. Because powdered milk is highly explosive, the incident was considered serious.

The fire broke out in the ducting of one of the vacuum pumps on the first floor of the three-storey building.

It was partly extinguished by United Milk employees before a fire engine arrived from West-bury. This was followed by one from Warminster and two from Trowbridge. An engine with a hydraulic platform from Salis-bury was also called to the scene.

Fire crews used thermal imaging equipment to assess the building and discovered that the fire was still coming from insulation material in the pipes.

The blaze was fully under control by 6.42pm and fire crews left the dairy at 7.26pm.

Divisional officer Simon Routh-Jones of Wiltshire Fire Brigade was in charge of the operation.

He said: "We had to track through all the ducting to see where the all the fire was.

"We found it was contained within the ducting. The dairy employees had done their job by turning off the plant motor and we followed the task through."