A fire in a former Neston factory which saw 10 tonnes of tyres set alight is believed to have been started deliberately.

Seven fire crews spent the night tackling the blaze at the building at Brockleaze, which is currently used to store tyres and plastic toys for recycling.

Both of Corsham’s fire crews were called to the former glove factory at Brockleaze just after 7pm last night, after the items inside caught fire, causing thick plumes of black smoke which were seen for miles around.

They were joined by appliances from Chippenham and Melksham, a water carrier from Royal Wootton Bassett, an incident command vehicle from Devizes, and an operational support unit from Swindon.

Brockleaze resident Brian Tilley watched as more than 30 firefighters worked to tackle the blaze 50 yards from his home.

He said: “I was out at the time and someone rang me to say the glove factory was on fire. I was a bit concerned as there are a lot of tyres there.

“I got there about 8pm and the fire was all under way by then, you could see the big tanker tyres burning.

“I came up from Bathford, and when I got to the Fiveways junction I could see the smoke. It was really thick and pungent; you could home in on it. It was very, very bad smoke, which would have drifted over to Corsham.

“It’s a derelict building, it has been derelict for years, it was the old glove factory, then they used it to recycle plastics, and since then it has just been used for storage.”

As of 9am this morning one pump was still on the site so that the situation could be monitored.