FIREFIGHTERS from across West Yorkshire were called in to tackle a mill blaze in Calderdale.

The fire was discovered at 8.30pm yesterday at a plastics company and a lighting firm, which share the three-storey mill at Haley Hill Works in the Boothtown area of Halifax.

Crews were drafted in from Huddersfield, Brighouse, Elland, Slaithwaite and Dewsbury as firefighters battled to bring the inferno under control.

They managed to stop it spreading to a neighbouring seven-story mill, but the building itself was destroyed.

At one point a third of the county's brigade was battling the blaze.

Station Officer Damian Brown, of Halifax Fire Station, said: "It was highly dangerous inside the mill. Visibility was nil and the plastics were giving off highly toxic smoke.

"We withdrew crews for their own safety and tackled the fire at first using hydraulic platforms. We could see the mill's roof glowing orange before flames burst through."

The blaze took two hours to bring under control. Damping down was expected to go on all today.

* A 75-year-old man collapsed after dousing a fire at his home.

The man discovered the fire at the house on Thornhill Bridge Lane off Bradford Road in Brighouse at 3.15am today.

A newspaper was burning behind the front door and the man threw water on it.

The man then staggered outside and collapsed suffering from the effects of breathing in smoke.

He was given oxygen by firefighters and was helped by paramedics, but did not want to go to hospital.

The cause of the fire is not thought to be suspicious.