A massive blaze engulfed a Frizinghall garden centre today - sending fireworks shooting into the sky.

The spectacular blaze destroyed the ACW Garden Centre soon after 11am - sending a huge pall of black smoke into the air and causing a flood of 999 calls.

Flames took hold of two large greenhouses on the site and had destroyed them and their contents within 20 minutes.

Five fire crews including three from Bradford station answered an emergency call to the centre in Canal Road.

There were reports of fire in one of the buildings at the garden firm and firefighters used a jet on the flames while dodging exploding fireworks.

Customers and workers were forced to flee the garden centre after the main area caught light at about 11am. The cause is not yet known.

Gas cylinders and small amounts of gardening chemicals had given fire chiefs cause for concern and Assistant Divisional Officer Steve Shaw said they were also worried about the fall out of the smoke which had risen into the atmosphere and was falling over Holme Wood.

Stuart Renton, an assistant at ACW, said staff had initially been unaware as to the gravity of the blaze.

He said: "We were all pretty calm in the beginning and were walking out like it was nothing too serious.

"If we had known then how bad it was I think we would have moved a lot faster."

He said fish, plants, lawn mowers and shelves of chemicals had been destroyed in the fire as well as the plastic roofing of many of the buildings.

Some customers feared they were trapped at the far end of the site after the first fire engines to arrive blocked the main entrance.

One shaken woman said: "We didn't know at first how we were going to get out, we were absolutely terrified.

"We had to run out of the far gates and round to the front where my car was still parked with my dog Sam inside.

"My only thoughts at the time was to get my dog out and get out of the garden centre as fast as I could.

"It all went off so suddenly. We saw a couple of flames and then all of a sudden the whole place was alight."

Police cornered off the area outside the garden centre for about 200 metres in each direction.

Traffic was diverted away from Canal Road coming from the city centre along Stanley Street as motorists slowed down to watch the vast plumes of smoke.

ADO Shaw said: "It's not yet known how the fire was started. We are just now trying to assess how far the smoke is being carried. We know it is going to Holme Wood and we are just trying to work out how damaging the fall-out could be."

Trains on the Bradford to Frizinghall line which adjoins the garden centre were forced to wait at Frizinghall platform, causing minor delays.

The fire follows a previous blaze which destroyed Tong Garden Centre. Scott Ormonroyd, shop manager of the next door business, Dickinson Caravans Ltd, said: "It looks a bit like the remains of Tong Garden Centre. There's nothing there. Both greenhouses and workshops have gone."