The work of firefighters on Britain’s biggest nuclear plant has been praised after a fire broke out yesterday.

The fire, which broke out in a building associated with a reprocessing plant on the nuclear site, was dealt with quickly by the Sellafield Fire & Rescue Service.

A Sellafield spokesman said: “At 12.30am a small fire was discovered in a building associated with the Magnox Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield.

“Sellafield Fire & Rescue service responded and the fire was quickly extinguished.

“All personnel have been accounted for.

"There were no radiological consequences.”

Commenting on the incident, Copeland councillor David Moore said: “Clearly one of the significant parts of the emergency plan for the site is that it has it’s own fire service on site 24/7 and that put’s them in that position that they can act really quickly to any emergency incident on site.

"The fact that it turned out to only be a small fire is probably because of the fact that they were able to attend really quickly to the incident and stop the fire escalating to being any worse.

"That risk assessment says that although Cumbria Fire and Rescue service are stationed around nearby in the local communities, they need that resilience to have their own fire crew on site.

"The fact that this is only a small incident is because they are able to have their own appliances on site and their own fire crews there 24/7."