Fire destroyed the set of the controversial BBC television series Rome yesterday after an electrical fault at the historic Cinecittà film studios.

Eleven fire engines and fifty fire-fighters tackled flames up to 40m (130ft) high, preventing the blaze from consuming other historic sets such as that for Ben-Hur and classic films by Federico Fellini.

Guido Parisi, the head of the Rome fire brigade, said that his men had stopped the blaze reaching the densely populated nearby residential quarter of Tuscolano.

One resident, Mario Rizzo, 42, said that he had been “taking the night air” on his balcony at midnight before turning in when he saw “an inferno” leaping into the sky from the studio complex, with pieces of burning wood and cardboard floating down into the streets. The fire consumed an area of 3,000sq m housing the sets for Rome, made by the BBC and HBO.

“There were flames up to 40m high, because it was wood and synthetic materials that were burning,” Mr Parisi said. He said there were no injuries from the flames or smoke.

HBO, the US television network also behindThe Sopranos,had already taken the decision not to film another series of Rome after the second series had a slump in viewing figures in Britain and abroad.

The £63 million production was conducted on epic proportions, requiring a crew of 350 actors, 750 extras, and some scenes needing 4,000 items of costume. But the programme never lifted off, amid rows about the sex and violence that dominated the tales of generals, emperors and also slaves.

Although seven million people watched the debut episode on BBC Two, by the end of the first series viewing figures had tumbled to three million.

The sprawling Cinecittà studio complex, founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini, celebrated its 70th anniversary in April, with a party attended by a host of film stars and directors.

In the 1950s and 1960s – the era of La Dolce Vita, Fellini’s masterpiece, also filmed there – Cinecittà became known as “Hollywood on the Tiber”.

Iconic Cinecittà productions included not only Ben-Hur, (1959), directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston, but also epics such asCleopatra(1963), directed by Joseph Mankiewicz with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (who began their affair on the set) and Quo Vadis (1951) by Mervyn LeRoy, starring Peter Ustinov.

The studios were later used for television productions, but underwent a revival as a film production centre in the 1990s, when Cinecittà was privatised, with 25 per cent of the shares remaining in state hands.

Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York was filmed at Cinecittà, where the set of 19th-century New York was constructed, and so was Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

Sandro Battisti, the head of the studios, said that an investigation was under way to ascertain the cause of the blaze and assess the damage. The situation was now “under control”. Mr Parisi said the first indications were that the fire had been caused by a short circuit.

The studio said that the filming of Romehad been completed. “ForRome, there’s no impact because it’s over. But it could be bad in terms [of the Rome set’s] future use in other productions.”

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