It was business as usual today at Abingdon Business Park after a large-scale emergency operation.

Firefighters from Abingdon, Didcot, Kidlington and Oxford worked for more than 24 hours to prevent a cylinder of acetylene gas from exploding after a fire at Oxford Engineering in Colwell Drive on Monday.

People were evacuated from 12 units in Colwell Drive and Hitchin Court and a 200m exclusion zone was set up around the site.

Divisional officer Peter Tonks, based at Rewley Road fire station, Oxford, said: "Acetylene is a very, very unstable substance because when it is heated it can explode at any time without warning."

Mr Tonks said the heat of the fire could have caused a number of oxygen and propane cylinders as well as containers of acetone - another flammable substance - to explode.

To prevent the acetylene exploding, firefighters worked through Monday night, using a powerful sprinkler to keep it cool.

By 10am yesterday, the cylinder had been made safe by fireifghters.

It was later removed by the air products company that owns the gas cylinders.

By noon, Oxford Engineering had restarted production and Colwell Drive was reopened to traffic at 1pm.

Oxford Engineering chairman Alex Watts said: "We have got a lot of clearing up work to do now, but the damage is not as bad as we were expecting.

"We are grateful that no-one was injured."