More than 100 firefighters from across the county tackled a major four-storey blaze at the St Regis Paper Mill at Kemsley, on Sunday night.

The blaze was discovered at 8.17pm in a paper-making machine at the mill in Ridham Avenue and Sittingbourne firefighters were joined with back-up crews from Strood, Chatham, Gillingham, Rainham, Faversham Queenborough, Eastchurch and Teynham.

The fire was contained by 11am.

A crew spent the night on-site checking for hot spots.

Steve Jeffries, Kent Fire and Rescue Service north division manager praised the crews.

He said: “We initially sent four pumps but within 10 minutes of that first call we sent another six and it was increased to 15 soon after, so the response was extremely fast.

“The crews worked really hard in very difficult conditions because it was a severe fire.

"They managed to limit the damage to the machine itself and saved three-quarters of the roof. The rest of the building was smoke-damaged.”

The cause of the fire was not suspicious and is beleieved to have been caused by an electrical fault.