Firefighters spent four hours dealing with a fire at a Carlisle recycling plant.

Crews from Carlisle's East and West Fire Stations, Longtown and Gretna were called to North West Recycling Ltd, in Kingmoor Park, at 12.45am today where one of the machines had caught fire.

A spokesman for Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service said: "It could have been big. The crews have done really well to stop it spreading.

"In between the machines you have a clean area. Fortunately it stayed within the machine but it could have spread because they store dry wood so the potential was for it to spread quite rapidly."

They used two breathing appliances and various main jets to extinguish the blaze.

It is unknown if the machinery was in operation at the time of the fire but the machine was one that handled waste wood.