Toxic fumes and rubble are all that remains of a factory which went up in smoke overnight on Brisbane’s southern outskirts.

Emergency services were called to Yatala where the business was engulfed by flames.

Kara Butler reports.

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The smoke and flames could be seen for kilometres, with 80 firefighters battling the blaze for more than four hours.

Police and emergency services worked through the night and finally brought the inferno under control in the early hours of this morning.

Brad Commens, Fire Superintendent: “This is a significantly large blaze. We don’t have fires this big often-which is good but when we do have a blaze like this, it is a significant incident.”

The raging fire gutted the carpet underlay of the glue factory, smouldering the walls and destroying a 1000-litre container of glue.

Brad Commens, Fire Superintendent: “The building has been totally destroyed, total loss of contents within the building, significant damage to the guilding itself. It will most probably be totally demolished.”

Toxic fumes and smoke forced nearby residents indoors and streets and roads blocked off for hours.

Paul Ziebarth, Police Inspector: “We have declared an emergency situation between 9.30 and 1.30 this morning, during that time just to make sure that we were able to divert traffic and do evacuations if necessary.”

No-one was injured in the blaze, investigators aren’t sure how it started.

Paul Ziebarth, Police Inspector: “There’s no indication of anything to point to any suspicious nature behind the fire at this time and until we’ve determined the cause of the fire it’s too early to say.”

Authorities say the smoke from the blaze is within safe limits, but emergency services are continuing to monitor the air quality.

Kara Butler, QUT News