Sussex firefighters spent several hours putting out a fire at a local scrapyard on Wednesday. (Google)

A Sussex scrapyard was hit by fire on Wednesday after workers tried to remove a gas tank from a vehicle.

The fire broke out at JR Salvage and Son Ltd., which is located in the town's industrial park, on Wednesday afternoon.

Local firefighters took several hours to extinguish the fire and put out the hot spots.

Sussex Fire Chief Bill Wanamaker said crews evacuated a nearby drilling business and managed to keep the fire from spreading beyond the scrapyard.

He said there was a concern about the black smoke that was billowing out of the scrapyard.

“Anytime that you have vehicles on fire like that there is a lot of plastics and rubber and stuff like that so it does give you a concern about where it is going because the smoke is very black and toxic when it is coming off,” Wannamaker said.

“We were very fortunate the way that it was going, it wasn’t really bothering any other businesses except for the one that was right next door.”

There were no injuries and the fire is not considered suspicious.

Wannamaker said the fire started when workers at the business tried to remove a gas tank from a Toyota 4Runner.