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Firefighters used chemical foam to extinguish part of the inferno raging Monday after explosions at a fuel depot north of London, while a huge oily smoke cloud from the blaze drifted over northern France and headed toward Spain. The blasts Sunday, which injured 43 people, sent balls of fire into the sky and blew the doors off nearby houses, also contributed to a surge in oil prices to above $60 Monday. The explosions came just four days after an al-Qaida videotape appeared on the Internet calling for attacks on facilities carrying oil that it claims has been stolen from Muslims in the Middle East, but police said they believed the blasts were accidental. 'We're keeping an open mind but there is no indication at this point that is anything other than an accident,' Chief Superintendent Jeremy Alford said Monday. 'When we get into the site ... we'll treat it as a scene which may be a crime. We'll do full forensics.' The explosions occurred five months after transit terror attacks that killed 52 people and four suicide bombers. Fire officials said they had put out blazes at half the 20 fuel tanks at the Buncefield depot 25 miles north of London, the fifth-largest in Britain. Authorities approved the use of foam to fight the fire after determining the runoff would not pollute ground water supplies. Jane Hogg, the mayor of Dacorum Borough Council, said firefighters hoped to have the blaze fully extinguished sometime Monday, but a thick black plume of smoke continued to billow from the depot, which stores gasoline, diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel.
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