Oil blast smoke 'should begin dispersing'

The spectacular black pall of smoke resulting from the huge oil depot fire should start to disperse today, weather experts said.

The dark plume which rose from the inferno at the Buncefield site near Hemel Hempstead was this morning obscured by cloud from satellite pictures.

Paul Knightley, from the PA WeatherCentre, said it was probably “nowhere near as widespread” as yesterday and would have been dispersed by winds.

Today winds coming from the north east were likely to push any smoke in a south westerly direction towards south Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and north Hampshire.

Mr Knightley said: “It will be more dispersed today as the winds are stronger. We won’t see the massive pall of smoke as we saw yesterday. It will be a more narrow plume of smoke.”

He added: “It will be less concentrated. It won’t be quite as spectacular as yesterday. I don’t think we’ll see it as extensively in one area, it’s being dispersed more vigorously.”

Fears of black rain were unlikely to materialise today as there was no rain forecast in the region.

When some of the black particles from the smoke finally do come down it will not be “particularly noticeable” because they will have dispersed quite widely, he predicted.