A FIRE gutted the first floor of a yacht club at Gillingham Marina last night.

Crews for Medway, Chatham and Gillingham stations were called to the top floor blaze at 11.17pm.

The intense heat of the flames, and damage to the building's structure, meant the firefighters had to tackle the blaze from outside.

Crews spent nearly two hours getting the fire under control, and the first floor was about 75 per cent damaged.

Officer Steve Glass said: "By the time we arrived the fire was already well underway. I decided it would be easier to deal with the fire from outside the building because the heat was quite intense."

The building was unoccupied at the time of the fire and nobody was hurt.