Flames and thick clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky over Seasalter on Tuesday afternoon turned out to be the controlled burning of a caravan.

It was on land off Faversham Road belonging to the Alberta Holiday Park.

Whitstable firefighters had been called about the blaze, but were stood down.

One witness said: “From a distance it looked like a really serious fire with huge flames and plumes of smoke shooting up.

“A lot of us thought it might have been a house ablaze because from afar it looked like it was coming from a residential area.”