THE remains of a candle factory and another business will be demolished because of severe structural issues caused by an inferno.

Symphony Candles on Blandford Heights Industrial Estate went up in flames on Friday night, alongside Global Marketing Group which supplies novelty and theatre merchandise for London's West End shows.

At its height, there were 125 firefighters at the blaze and smoke could be seen from Picket Post, 30 miles away.

Global Marketing Group said they had lost almost everything but it will be business as usual today as they have managed to retrieve their files and they will work from home and reorder stock.

Firefighters were still on the scene on Sunday damping down hotspots covered by a layer of melted plastic.

Speaking to the Echo yesterday, Simon Jewers, Hamworthy watch manager, said the fire would have reached around 1,000 degrees celcius to cause such extensive damage.

Most of the roof collapsed and many of the walls are gone.

Melted wax ran down the site to neighbouring businesses, where it pooled around objects such as drums, sticking them to the ground.

Mr Jewers said: "It is going to be professionally demolished on Monday.

"They did have the safety feature of the internal wall. The intensity of the fire breached the safety wall."

Beverley Sharp, office manager for Global Marketing Group, had to break the news to her boss on business in Hong Kong by telephone and he is now heading home.

"People have been fantastic," she said yesterday.

"Our IT people came out. They have taken the computers away to check them and get them up and running. Yesterday they were in helping us take files out of the offices.

"Seward Vauxhall were helping us. Our courier turned up. It's nice that people will put themselves out for you."

Mrs Sharp said what was not burned, such as boxes of clothing and pedestal fans, had been smoke damaged or water logged.

The Echo was unable to contact candle factory owner, Chris Redsell.

In November 2003, the same company's factory was destroyed by fire in Sturminster Newton.