The fire broke out on PM3 at the group’s Alfeld Mill on the evening of 12 May. There are no reported injuries.

The mill is located to the south of Hanover and dates back to 1706. It runs five paper machines from 3.3m to 4.8m in width, and makes coated and uncoated paper, as well as SBB carton board.

In a statement, Sappi Europe said: “There have been no recorded casualties and an evaluation by official experts is underway to assess the cause of the fire and the resulting damage to the paper machine.”

The Alfeld site is over 384,000sqm in size and has approximately 800 employees.

Sappi said that all other paper machines at the site remained fully operational.

“Sales staff will be directly in contact with their customers to keep them updated with any impact caused by this incident,” the firm added.