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Two people were taken to hospital after a large fire broke out early on Wednesday at a BAE Systems shipyard in north-west England where the UK defence company builds nuclear submarines.
Cumbria police said the “significant fire” was first reported at 12.44am at the BAE Systems site in the port of Barrow-in-Furness, adding that there was “no nuclear risk”.
Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service is at the scene. Cumbria police said in an update at 8.15am that people living nearby were no longer being advised to remain indoors but the “message remains to keep doors and windows closed”.
The two people taken to hospital had suspected smoke inhalation. BAE Systems said on Wednesday that one had subsequently been released.
The company said in a statement it was “working with emergency services to deal with a fire at our site in Barrow-in-Furness”.
BAE said the area around Devonshire Dock Hall, the main indoor submarine complex where Royal Navy boats are built, had been evacuated and everyone accounted for.
The company said it had no immediate information on the cause of the fire. The Ministry of Defence said it was “working closely with the emergency services and BAE Systems” following the fire and it was too early to say what the cause was.
Defence sources said there was no indication as yet that the fire might be due to sabotage or terrorism, but that it was still early days.
Earlier this month, Ken McCallum, head of MI5, the UK’s domestic intelligence service, said that Russian military intelligence was on “a sustained mission to generate mayhem” on British streets, using “arson, sabotage . . . and dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness”, often via recruited proxies.
Photos on social media showed flames and smoke above the Devonshire Dock Hall.
The Barrow shipyard is where BAE builds Britain’s nuclear-powered Astute-class attack boats. The company earlier this month launched the sixth Astute submarine, HMS Agamemnon. The seventh and final vessel, HMS Agincourt, is under construction at the site.
Barrow is also where the company is building the latest Dreadnought-class vessels that will carry the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent and are due to replace the Vanguard submarines in the early 2030s.
The site dominates the town and employs about 10,000 people. BAE has increased hiring in recent months to deliver on the new submarine programmes for the Royal Navy, as well as under the trilateral Aukus treaty with the US and Australia to build submarines for Canberra.
The company has said it expects the factory’s workforce to eventually rise to about 17,000 by the early part of the next decade. The UK said last year it would invest more than £3bn across its nuclear defence enterprise over the next two years to help build capacity and help the delivery of Aukus.
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