Firefighters spent almost six hours battling a blaze after electrical fire in a house led to a gas main rupturing.

At 10.42pm last night pumps from Medway and Strood were called to an electric box alight in Prospect Row, Chatham.

But while the crews were tackling the fire the gas main ruptured and caught light as well.

Kent Fire and Rescue then had to wait for EDF engineers to arrive and cap the gas to make the area safe.

One of the crew who attended said: “When we got there the two adults living in the property had got out quickly and were not injured.

“There was a lot of smoke coming out the front and the back.

“The property was ventilated but there was large amounts of smoke damage to the ground floors and two other floors.

"The people in that property will not be able to live there for a few weeks at least.”

It took around 15 firefighters two hours to get it under control during the worst of the blaze, but one pump stayed at the site dampening down and ventilating until around 4am.

The neighbouring three or four properties also had to be ventilated.

The fire is not being treated as suspicious.