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I've been standing outside the rescue centre in Calais watching a strange succession of emergency vehicles come and go to the Channel Tunnel - one can set up overhead floodlights so the fire-fighters can work in the dark, there's another with heavy lifting gear and, oddest of all, very narrow coaches to take the fire-fighters to the scene of the blaze.

These slim-line coaches, built so they can operate in the tunnel, are a reminder of the conditions these men and women have been working in.

Now the fire is out, the 1000C temperatures have cooled down to just 800C. Some 100 fire-fighters from France and 100 from Britain - 200 of them in total - worked in relays, in cramped conditions. I've just been watching video released by the French fire-brigade showing them preparing to head for what must be many people's vision of hell.

If this accident is a reminder of their courage, it also makes many of us realise how much we've got used to the ease of travelling through the tunnel. Many Brits who work in Brussels are going to be very put out by the closure this weekend, and I suspect disruption for many weeks to come.

The old, and perhaps apocryphal headline read: "Fog in Channel, Continent cut off" but the fire under the channel emphasises how much traffic there is these days.

One of those whose weekend plans have been changed is the Conservative MEP and Transport Spokesman Timothy Kirkhope, who was about enter the tunnel in a train when the fire started.

He is warning that lessons must be learnt about dangerous chemicals being allowed on board. He says the accident should be a wake-up call to the regulators and asked while a lorry carrying phenol, or carbolic acid, should be allowed.

But the authorities seem both relieved that this wasn't much worse and thankful that their preparations for an emergency paid off.

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