SHOPPERS had to be evacuated from a town centre store after the staff quarters were engulfed with smoke.

The alarm was raised at Bhs in New Road, Gravesend at 1.50pm on Friday.

All the shoppers and staff were sent out of the store as two pumps from Thames-side Fire Station arrived to investigate the source of the smoke.

A spokesman for Thames-side said: “We were called to reports of smoke logging in the staff area of Bhs.

“We located the heat source as being the motor in one of the lifts. We put the fire out and dealt with the smoke by using a positive pressure ventilation fan.”

The whole incident took about an hour.