COLEMAN, Fla. — Eight inmates have been hospitalized following a fight at a federal prison in Florida, where Conrad Black is serving his sentence, but the former media mogul was not involved in the incident, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Sunday.

A "large-scale fight" broke out in the recreation yard serving a high-security building at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex, spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said.

No staff workers were seriously injured and the condition of the inmates, all of them male, was not immediately available, Billingsley told The Associated Press.

The official said that Black, one of Coleman's most prominent inmates, is housed in a low-security unit away from where Sunday's fighting broke out and that low-security inmates were not involved.

Last year, Black reported to Coleman to begin a 6 1/2-year sentence after his conviction for fraud and obstruction of justice for swindling shareholders of the Hollinger International media empire.

Asked later Sunday about the injuries, she told AP that "one is gunshot, but I don't know about the others." She said she had no further details about the fighting and how it began.

The Orlando Regional Medical Center confirmed Sunday that seven people were under treatment after being taken there.

It was unclear where the eighth inmate was taken and hospital officials declined to identify them by name and give details on their conditions.

The prison has four units that house low-, medium- and high-security inmates. Billingsley said the fight erupted in a yard at one of the two high-security units at the federal complex, which is located about 85 kilometres northwest of Orlando.