A supermarket in Strood had to be evacuated on Saturday morning after a chip pan fire broke out in the staff canteen.

Firefighters were called out to the Tesco store in Cuxton Road, at about 10am after smoke from the fire set of the store’s alarm system.

A spokesman for Kent Fire and Rescue Service, said: “Staff had done the right thing and had put a fire blanket over the burning pan and had then used the correct extinguisher to make sure all the flames were out.

“When we arrived staff had got all the customers and themselves out.

“This type of fire causes heavy smoke to stay around for quite sometime, because of this the fire alarms kept going off, so neither the customers or the staff could go back into the store until the smoke had dispersed and the alarms could be reset.

“We were on the scene for about 20 minutes.”