Staff turned up to open a shop for a day’s trading, only to discover a fire had broken out.

The small blaze caused smouldering at the wooden entrance of The Range homeware store at Firs Lane, Cheriton.

Fire crews were called to it out at 7.50am today.

They quickly put out the fire and discovered it had been caused by wiring short-circuiting, overheating and melting.

Folkestone Fire Station watch manager Giles Parker said: “It happened just as the store was about to open. But we were able to deal with it and were only there for 40 minutes.”

Two fire engines from the Folkestone station were sent out to the incident.