At its height, 100 firefighters and dock personnel tackled the flames at Falmouth Docks, which destroyed about 650 feet (200 metres) of Queen's Wharf, built in 1936.

The company which manages the dock, A&P, said the crane which fell into the sea at the height of the fire on Wednesday should be removed within a month.

But the company's managing director, Ian Pike, said it would be some time before they are able to decide whether or not to rebuild the pier.

Halogen lamps are thought to have caused the fire

"The immediate thing we are going to try and do is get the crane lifted out of the water and that is certainly going to happen in the next few weeks.

"We are having a series of meetings with our insurers to see whether we rebuild or remove it totally and start again.

"There's probably a number of options that will be available to us," he said.

Last week managers revealed the fire could affect the future of the business.

A&P said jobs will be lost because it cannot deal with certain repair work because of diminished berth capacity.