Bale clear out keeps firefighters busy | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

The fire service resumed work on removing paper bales from Hawk Packaging this morning after a blaze had 50 firefighters working at the Hastings factory late Sunday night and through to yesterday morning.

Hawke's Bay fire service area commander Chris Nicoll said moving the bales out of the factory had taken longer than expected.

A fire team had been stationed at the site on Tomoana Rd in Mahora overnight to make sure the fire did not reignite and work on removing the bales from the factory into a nearby paddock was due to restart this morning.

The bales needed to be broken up and extinguished in case there were still embers burning inside.

"We stopped the work [on removing bales] about midnight last night and we're hoping to get it sorted out by midday today," Mr Nicoll said. "We haven't determined the cause of the fire and need to get the bales out before we can ascertain where the fire originated from. We had a crew of four there overnight and will have two crews back there this morning."

Hawk Packaging group financial controller Mike Sanko yesterday said most staff had returned to work but the building would need to be checked and cleared by the fire service before operations resumed as normal.

No staff were injured from the fire, administration and engineering staff were able to resume work and there had not been a value put on the fire damage.

"There is fire damage to the paper store which is a small part of our paper production facility here," Mr Sanko said. "We will be moving as quickly as we can to get the plant operating again."

He said Sunday night's fire was not related to another at the factory in February this year.