Two days on from fire near St Mary's, what is going on now?

As dawn broke yesterday morning, it was a scene of devastation in Melbourne Street as the Polystar Plastics unit had been reduced to piles of brick and rubble, its roof balanced above.

Fire crews had been dealing with the blaze since it began at 1pm on Wednesday - curtailing Saints' match against Preston and casting doubt on Saturday's home game against Sunderland.

READ MORE: Southampton confirm no fire damage to St Mary's - but what about Saturday's match? 

It is understood plastic materials were involved in the incident, which saw more than 100 firefighters tackle the fire at its height.

While the fire was brought under control on Wednesday night, there was still much to do - and the closure of Marine Parade and joining roads led to widespread delays during rush hour.

Speaking the morning after the fire, group manager Mark White, incident commander at the scene, said: “We’re continuing to apply water to the hotspots, some of which are quite deep seated because of the nature of the storage of the plastic that's within the warehouse.

“We're likely to be here all day as a minimum because of the nature of the storage.

“As I said, it's proving difficult to actually get to the seat of the fire at the moment, of which there are many.

“We have a team arriving late who are going to look at dismantling some of the buildings to allow us access to those hotspots so that we can fully extinguish the fire.”

A change in wind direction yesterday meant those who were previously unaffected could have been seeing and smelling smoke.

Residents were advised that people in affected should keep their windows closed.

And those who find ash and debris from the fire on their property are advised to leave it alone.

Incident commander Mark White added: “Activities have continued overnight and this morning we have four fire engines in attendance along with an aerial ladder platform, which is a high reach appliance that is being used as a water tower.

“We are hoping at some point today we will be able to extinguish the fire completely, however in some areas it is really deep seated and there are areas that are very difficult to reach due to the partially collapsed nature of the building.”

By 4.20pm yesterday, the fire service updated: "We are scaling down our response to two fire engines and one Aerial Ladder Platform.

"It is likely we will remain onsite throughout the night damping down and dealing with hotspots.

"Road closures currently remain in place."

A cause of the fire has not been ascertained yet and the investigation continues.