FIRE and rescue services are investigating the cause of a blaze at an industrial estate near Watlington.

A 200m cordon around the site is still in place and the road is still closed up to the Lys Mill site, police say.

Police spokesman James Williams said: “It is early day yet but fire and rescue services are investigating the cause of the fire.” Police are still at the scene.

Fire fighters are controlling the remains of a huge fire and expect to be on site until 11pm.

Those living near the fire caused after gas explosions near Watlington earlier described it as "colossal".

Watlington resident Christian Karl Wolf-La'Moy called the fire and rescue services when he saw the blaze from his home at 10.28pm yesterday.

He said: “I looked out of the window and it was just taking hold and getting bigger and bigger. Within minutes it was roaring away. I called the fire service who said they had had others calling in about it.

“People were actually stepping outside to watch it, it was like a firework display.

“You could see the fire from two miles away, the flames were huge. Without being too sensationalist, it was just colossal."

Dozens of fire fighters are still at the scene and have cordoned off 200 metres around the industrial estate in Howe Road.

LYS Industrial estate houses a series of dangerous gas cylinders which set off at least 10 explosions.

Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue services were called to the scene at 11pm, and managed to stop the flames from spreading to neighbouring industrial buildings.

They are expecting to have to keep the flames under control until at least 11pm tonight. The acetylene, propane and oxygen cylinders stored in the buildings meant fire fighters had to retreat and control the flames from 200m away

Mr Karl Wolf-La'Moy added: “There are some good little businesses which run from there, it’s such a shame they might be destroyed.”

Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Incident Commander Area Manager Mat Carlile said: “You could see the flames from the M40 as we approached.

“As soon as we arrived there was an extremely large explosion and then there was a series of 10 to 20 smaller explosions.

Our main concern was for our fire fighters because they have been killed by Acetylene explosions in the past.

“As soon as we realised what we were dealing with we set up an exclusion zone.”