A suspected hoax call saw firefighters rush to a residential road...only to find no flames at all.

Firefighters were called at 4am today to an apparent blaze in St Stephen's Walk in Ashford.

When the caller was phoned back to ask for more information, there was no answer.

Crew manager Tim Hanley said: "When we are at the scene there might be a genuine call that we are unable to attend.

"People need to be sure that they are making the right call when they are calling out the fire service."

After a thorough search of the area, the firefighters went back to base.

"We couldn't locate it, so we are not sure if it was malicious," he said.

"Our operators are trained to filter out malicious calls, so I am not sure whether the call was with good intent.

"There wasn't a fire when they got to the address, but it was quite cold last night so it could have been a boiler flue.

"If someone genuinely thinks there is a fire they could be embarrassed they called us out incorrectly."