A PRINTING firm’s warehouse was devastated in the second fire to hit the company in less than 12 months.

The Bicester base of printing firm Polestar, which prints magazines including Hello, Good Food and the New Scientist, was hit by the fire in the early hours.

Firefighters were last night still on the scene in Chaucer Business Park carrying out investigation and salvage work, and they were expected to carry on throughout the night.

It is the second time the firm – formerly known as BGP – has been hit by fire in less than a year.

Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service sent five engines to the paper warehouse in Granville Way, off Launton Road, after receiving a call at about 12.55am.

No one was injured.

Two fire engines remained at the site during Mondaydampening down the paper, which was still smoking.

A fire service spokesman said: “The fire involved an LPG forklift and spread to the high bay warehouse. About 50 per cent of the warehouse was involved.”

He also said the exact cause of the blaze had not been determined yesterday, adding: “They are still in the process of carrying out the investigation.”

Polestar prints a range of magazines and brochures, posters, flyers and directories, and uses the warehouse to store magazines.

It is a single-storey temporary structure made of an aluminium frame with a marquee-style roof. Much of this was damaged.

A spokesman for the firm said it was too early to say how much damage was caused, adding: “There’s really nothing we can say except there was a fire and there were no injuries.”

The Bicester site operates 24 hours a day and staff were back working yesterday.

Smoke from the fire also caused problems for nearby businesses.

Karen Clarke, of neighbouring firm EP Barrus, said: “The smoke has affected us. When you look out of the window it’s hazy and there’s still bits of paper flying around. It’s not very pleasant, but we are carrying on as normal.”

Last July, 11 people fled the printing press warehouse, then called Benhamgoodheadprint (BGP), after a fire in a printing machine.

Polestar recently invested £40m in technology at Bicester to develop it into the largest single-site commercial web offset facility in the UK.

In December, the Oxford Mail reported that BGP – founded in 1973 as Goodhead Press – had made losses of £70m over the past five years.

They were triggered by the loss of its contract to print the BT phone book in 2006.