The fire that broke out at storage facilities on the southern outskirts of Osijek early on Sunday morning has been contained, no one was injured in the accident but the material damage is extensive, the civil protection centre of this eastern Croatian city said on Sunday.

The centre’s head, Dragan Vulin, said that the fire broke out at the storage facilities of several companies, destroying them almost entirely as well as the stored commodities.

A number of explosions could be heard from one of the warehouses as firefighters were fighting the blazes, presumably coming from gas cylinders and pressurised tanks, but none of the firefighters were in the immediate vicinity of the explosions, Vulin said, adding that the firefighters managed to prevent the fire from spreading to a nearby petrol station.

The firefighters received the report about the fire shortly after 3 a.m., the head of the city fire department, Goran Ivković, said, noting that the fire spread quickly due to a relatively strong wind.

Twenty-two fire trucks and 78 firefighters from the area of Osijek were involved in efforts to put out the fire.

The deputy head of the Osijek-Baranja County Police Department, Darijo Premec, said that an on-site investigation would start as soon as the conditions at the fire site allowed it, but that it was unlikely to start today.

Premec said that the southern Osijek ring road would be opened to traffic soon because the danger of smoke had decreased.

According to unofficial reports, the fire erupted in an area where the storage facilities of several companies, including Lagermax and GLS, are located.