Thirty animals had a lucky escape when a fire destroyed sections of a barn in Addingham Moorside.

Four fire engines and 20 firefighters attended the blaze at Ghyll House Farm, Straight Lane, Addingham Moorside. It started in a barn at 1.30pm on Tuesday after farmer Stanley Flesher had been using an angle grinder to cut some metal.

He had gone inside to have a cup of tea when a spark from the machinery is believed to have started the fire.

Mr Flesher, who writes a column for the Gazette, said: "I had been grinding metal in the workshop part of the barn. I went in for a cup of tea and I saw smoke coming out of the building. My son, Mike, got some water organised and we grabbed some buckets.

"There were 30 cattle in the barn - some had run for it and the others were trapped. We broke some of the timber to enable them to get out. It only took us about three minutes.

"There was a bath full of water, which was for the cattle and we used that to try to put out the flames. I also keep an extinguisher in the barn. It is the first fire I have had in 40 years of living here."

Betty Flesher raised the alarm. She had been travelling down Addingham Moorside to go shopping in Ilkley and post her husband's column into the Gazette, when she saw smoke coming from her home.

"I had reached the main road and I saw smoke from our property so I drove back to let them know what was happening and we rang the fire brigade," she said. "A man passing in a van had also come to warn us."

Crews from Ilkley, Silsden and Keighley attended the incident. A spokesman from the fire brigade said: "Thirty per cent of the barn was engulfed in flames and the fire crews had to use a large jet.

"The fire was very fierce when we arrived, after putting it out we kept putting water on it."

The workshop part of the barn was destroyed.