A fire at a recycling centre in Basildon that lasted almost a week has been ruled as "accidental" after an investigation.

The blaze at the Hovefields Avenue site started on September 14, and was finally extinguished on September 20.

Essex Fire has since been carrying out an investigation and has now confirmed that the cause of the fire was accidental.

The major fire broke out at TLM Environmental Recycling Centre, and took almost a week to extinguish after the warehouse collapsed on top of 5,000 tonnes of waste that was alight.

Whilst tackling the blaze, five firefighters were also taken to hospital as a precaution.

Area manager Craig McLellan said: "This was a drawn-out incident that I’m pleased to say is now coming to an end.

"As many people already know, the reason it took so long to extinguish the fire was because the warehouse had collapsed on top of about 5,000 tonnes of waste that was alight.

"We also needed to tackle the fire in a slow and steady way as not to increase the smoke levels more than necessary.

"The on-site staff have been instrumental in their commitment to working with us to help extinguish the fire and we appreciate everything they have done.

“Our thanks once again go to the local community and businesses for their patience while we tackled this fire."