A large fire at a car wreckers in Melbourne's north that left a man with facial burns has been brought under control, but firefighters expect to remain on the scene overnight.
Firefighters arrived at the scene on Settlement Road in Thomastown about 1:30pm and were confronted by a large factory engulfed in an "intense fire".
Assistant chief fire officer Darren Conlin said the fire was fuelled by a "load of rubber tyres and really old disbanded cars".
"So black dirty smoke, a really hard-running fire, and it was quite a challenge early on," he said.
Initial reports from the factory's owner indicated the fire may have been caused by an explosion in a forklift, but Commander Conlin said the source of the fire had not been confirmed yet.
About eight people were evacuated from the factory, but one person was taken to the Austin Hospital with facial burns, he said.
He said there was asbestos in the roof, which also made it a difficult fire to tackle.
"When you get enough heat to ignite the rubber, well it runs hard and ignites quickly and that's what we were faced with early," he said.
"When the smoke was about 100 to 120-feet high (30-36 metres), well the flames within that smoke were at least that high, so we were settling in for a long fire fight."
Earlier there were more than 100 firefighters on the scene trying to extinguish the flames.
The fire is now under control but firefighters expect to be at the scene throughout the night.
"There will be ongoing smouldering, and the piles of tyres are really hard to fully extinguish," Commander Conlin said.
