Did kids cause cars inferno?

The blaze, at Fred Lloyd and Sons scrapyard at the Polo Grounds, New Inn, broke out just after 7pm yesterday.

And today investigations were continuing into how it happened. Owner Mr Lloyd said this morning he believed last night's blaze could have been started by youngsters messing around.

"We have CCTV and all the security measures we can," he said. "But it's a five-and-a-half acre site and we can't cover it all. But at least no one was hurt, that's the main thing.

"We store a lot of cars at the back of the yard and they somehow caught fire and it got out of control. There were between 60 and 100 cars there, but they were only scrap, so this won't have any effect on us financially."

The fire service operation was scaled down just after 10.30pm but a team of firefighters remained at the site until 8am today.

South Wales Fire Service is investigating the cause of the blaze. During the night around 50 fire-fighters from New Inn, Cwmbran, Malpas, Duffryn and Usk were involved in bringing it under control.

Water jets were used to fight the fire and ground monitors sprayed water to prevent it from spreading, said a fire service spokeswoman.

A special unit from Whitchurch was also brought to the scene and firefighters from Whitchurch and Pontyclun were brought in to act as back-up.

Station officer Paul Mason said: "On arrival fire crews found a large fire involving approximately 100 scrap vehicles. They worked together through the night to extinguish the fire."

Police and the ambulance service were alerted and Railtrack told as a precaution because a track runs near the scrapyard.

It was the second fire in three months at the scrapyard on the Polo Grounds industrial estate.

On June 19, an estimated £50,000 worth of damage was caused to a crushing machine. Mr Lloyd said the fire started due to a technical fault. Staff at the yard said a car being crushed by the machine burst into flames.

*PICTURED: The crew of New Inn's White Watch inspect the damage