A PARROT has been rescued from a blaze that broke out at the Redstart public house in Maidstone.

The pet had become trapped upstairs after flames began to engulf the bar area of the pub in North Street, Barming.

Two pumps from Maidstone and one pump from Larkfield attended the fire late on Wednesday night.

Firefighter Richard Howe, from Maidstone Fire Station’s Green Watch, said: “On arrival we saw that there were lights on upstairs, so we called for more crews as we thought there may be people inside.

“When the crews went in they could hear some muffled screams. When they went upstairs they found a parrot. It was the parrot that had been calling out and talking to them.

There was nobody else on the premises.”

More than a dozen firefighters took just 45 minutes to deal with the fire, which had caused some damage to the bar area.