Firefighters had to smash through a wall to reach a chimney fire sparked by fallen soot.

The crew were called to Mill Close, Strood at about 9.40pm on Tuesday.

The homeowner dialled 999 after becoming concerned by an ‘extremely hot’ bedroom wall.

A spokesman for Kent Fire and Rescue Service said: “It took a while to work out where the heat was actually coming from but further investigation revealed that there was a fire behind the wall partition.

“What had happened was that some soot had fallen from the chimney stack down into the partition wall and had caught alight.

“We took down part of the wall to get into the space and were able to put out the fire.

“It was quite a challenging job.”