A small fire broke out early Wednesday at a nuclear reactor under construction in Finland but was extinguished within a few hours and there was no danger to the public, Finnish power group Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said.
The fire brigade put out the blaze at the Olkiluoto nuclear plant in southeastern Finland before 6:00 a.m. (0300 GMT).
There were no injuries and the cause of the fire was not yet known, TVO said.
"There was no construction work going on when work inspectors detected the fire," TVO chief executive Jarmo Tanhua told AFP.
He said damage to the reactor was expected to be limited, affecting mainly scaffolding and building materials.
"There were no dangerous materials nearby, but a lot of wooden construction materials," TVO spokesman Juhani Itkonen said.
The new Olkiluoto reactor is being built by a consortium made up of French firm Areva and Germany's Siemens. It is the world's first next generation pressurised water reactor.
The reactor will be Finland's fifth nuclear reactor, and the third at the Olkiluoto plant.
The project has run into major delays and is now expected to start producing electricity in 2011.
Some 25 percent of electricity consumed in Finland is produced in nuclear power plants.
