STAFF at a car parts factory hit by fire have been praised by their boss and a leading fire fighter for how they dealt with the blaze.

The manager of Gestamp Tallent on Aycliffe Business Park, in County Durham, described the actions of staff who reacted to the fire on Friday night (May 15) as ‘exceptional’.

That view was echoed by a leading fire fighter who said their help prevented the incident, which has been found to have started in a welding machine, from becoming more serious.

County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue service were called to the sprawling plant shortly before 9.30pm.

When they arrived all 110 workers had been safely evacuated from the assembly plant.

John Walkden, group manager, said: “Fire crews were at the scene within five minutes of the call and worked well with staff.

“They had followed their procedure to evacuate if they don’t feel confident about dealing with an incident and were very helpful.

“They gave us the key information straight away so we could carry out a risk assessment and deal with the incident quickly and prevent a potentially very dangerous situation.”

Plant director Peter Gallone said: “No one was hurt in the incident and we have worked with our internal teams and the fire brigade to ensure the plant is totally safe to recommence activities.

"We would like to sincerely thank the fire brigade and emergency services for the outstanding and professional support given to the company in this incident and also to recognise the exceptional actions of our own employees in safely evacuating the plant in minutes and taking all appropriate actions to control the situation.

“We could not have expected more from either group.”

Six fire appliances and an aerial ladder platform were in attendance at one point and crews had five breathing apparatus and two jets in use.

The blaze was confined to one building, 200x60 metres in size, and an investigation found it started in a welding machine which was damaged along with other machinery.

The fire was put out by about 1am on Saturday but fire fighters continued to visit the premises over the weekend.

Normal operations at the factory, which manufactures motor components for Jaguar, Landrover, Volvo, Ford, BMW, Nissan and Honda and employs more than 1,300 people, had resumed on Saturday morning.