FIRE crews battled a blaze for hours at a waste management centre in Hartlepool at the weekend.

Two separate fires broke out at the Niramax site on Sunday afternoon, with one starting on a conveyor belt and the other in a pile of rubbish.

Cleveland Fire Brigade, who were called at 12.20pm, sent out five appliances to tackle the flames and managed to put out the fire on the conveyor belt, which was 30 per cent damaged in the blaze.

The public was advised to avoid the site as emergency services carried out their work throughout Sunday afternoon, managing to extinguish the flames by 4.50pm.

Nobody was injured as a result of the fire.

It is not the first time that firefighters have been dispatched to the Niramax site in recent years.

In 2015, crews manning ten appliances fought flames for several hours after a fire that started in a shed spread throughout the site.

Niramax would not comment on the incident when contacted by The Northern Echo.