Family home severely damaged by electrical fire

The Brightlingsea house was smoke filed by the time crews arrived

A semi-detached house has been severely damaged by a fire and smoke after neighbours alerted the fire service when they heard smoke alarms going off.

Crews were called to Windsor Court, Brightlingsea, Essex, at about 15:10 BST on Wednesday.

Firefighters worked quickly to prevent it spreading and it was put out by 16:18, the service said.

The fire was thought to have started by an electrical fault.

Nick Singleton, station manager, said: "We’d like to praise the neighbours for their quick actions in calling us."

He added many of the crews were on-call firefighters and some had worked throughout Tuesday night into Wednesday to tackle a large fire at a derelict building in Fronks Road, Dovercourt.