Fire crews in southern England are to begin fighting one of Europe?s biggest peace time blazes yesterday after a wave of explosions ripped through a fuel depot. A spectacular plume of smoke turned the sky black for miles around after blasts caused widespread damage and started a blaze which sent fireballs shooting into the air early on Sunday. Police said it was too early to say what caused the explosions, which injured 43 people, one seriously, although they said it appeared to be an accident.

The blasts, reportedly heard up to 100 miles away, initially raised fears of a possible repeat of the deadly wave of suicide bombings in London in July. ?We all thought it could be a terrorist attack,? builder Ricky Clarke, who lives near the depot near the town of Hemel Hempstead, north of London, told the Daily Mail newspaper. ?Everyone was really panicking and just getting in their cars and going.? A truck driver queuing at the Buncefield depot to fill his lorry with fuel said he and some colleagues had had a «miraculous» escape.

?There was just a massive, massive explosion,? Terry Hine told Sky News television. ?The force of the blast threw all of us forward onto the floor.? Chief fire officer, Roy Wilsher, said it was the largest fire he had ever seen. ?We have been informed by experts that this is possibly the largest incident of this kind in peace time Europe,? he said.

<B>Fire crews move in</B>

After containing the fire on Sunday, more than 150 firefighters were ready to start putting it out with a blanket of foam early yesterday, a police spokeswoman said. About 2,000 people living near the depot were evacuated, main roads were closed and some flights into London?s Heathrow airport were delayed. British newspapers cleared their pages for scores of pictures of the fire under headlines such as ?Vision of Doomsday?, ?Cloud of Doom? and ?Black Sunday?. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott visited the scene and praised the emergency services? work.

?He was just glad that the number of people injured was small and that there were no fatalities,? a spokesman said. The depot supplies petrol and fuel oils to a large part of southeast England, including Luton and Heathrow airports. A government spokesman said that when full, the depot holds five percent of Britain?s oil supply, but they could not say how much it was holding before the blast. Officials said the explosions were unlikely to cause fuel shortages and urged motorists to avoid ?panic buying? of petrol. The depot, the fifth largest in Britain, is jointly run by oil companies Total and Texaco.

<B>Stephen HIRD Peter GRIFFITHS</B>