A small fire at a Bradford garage forced 20 residents to evacuate their homes because of fears over “volatile” gas cylinders.

Police cordoned off Queen’s Road as crews from Bradford Fire Station tackled the blaze at R and M Autos on Studley Road, near Peel Park, shortly after 10am yesterday.

Mark Rogerson, watch commander, said staff at the site had been welding with an oxy-acetylene cylinder when the fire broke out, which could have exploded in the heat.

He said: “There are new guidelines which say we need to set up a 200m cordon for two hours, which is why Queen’s Road was closed and people had to leave their homes. Before last month, the guidelines were to cordon off an area for 24 hours.

“Fortunately there weren’t many houses nearby.

“After we extinguished the fire, we used a ground hose pipe to put water on the cylinder to cool it down. We then used a non-contact thermometer and a thermal imaging camera to check the heat.

“It was only a small fire and I don’t know what caused it, but we had to cool down the cylinder before we could say it was safe to reopen the road.”

The owner of the business was not available when the Telegraph & Argus visited the site.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said officers had been called to guard the cordon and evacuate residents.

Resident Mary Slater, 43, said she could not see the fire but spotted police setting up a cordon on Queen’s Road.

She added: “I heard there were cylinders and they thought they could explode but I couldn’t see any smoke.

“There was a lot of traffic in the area because people had taped off the road.”