Emergency services were called to the Northfield prison yesterday after prisoners and staff were forced to evacuate due to a cell fire.

Department for Correctional Services CEO David Brown said the incident was caused by two prisoners in a cell.

“Two prisoners who were secured in their cell were escalating in bad behaviour and threats to staff and proceeded to cause damage to their cell and lit a fire in their cell,” Brown told ABC Radio.

“That caused a considerable amount of smoke and thanks to the excellent work of the staff in that unit, those prisoners were evacuated from their cell and the fire was extinguished.”

Brown said the cause of the fire was yet to be confirmed but “we suspect it may have been through tampering with the power point in the cell”.

Both prisoners were taken to hospital for assessment and remain there this morning, Brown said.

Three staff members at the prison were also taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.

“Those three staff members went home at different times last night and were cleared to go home,” Brown said.

“There were other ambulance personnel site who were available to provide assessment to other staff in the unit who were involved in evacuating prisoners to the evacuation point.”

Brown said around “140 to 157” prisoners would have been evacuated due to the fire.

Yatala Labour Prison houses medium and high-security male prisoners.