A Navy fire crew chopped down a fir tree for a makeshift chimney brush when a blaze broke out at a family home.

Former beauty queen Caroline Davies had just put her daughter to bed when flames from her front room open fire swept up the chimney.

As flames lapped at the chimney pot, Mrs Davies fled outside with eight-year-old Valentine while her husband tried to douse the flames with buckets of water.

A Green Goddess crew arrived within ten minutes and fought the flames.

To ensure the fire would not reignite, the six-man crew cut the top off a fir tree to clean out the chimney at Wyedown Hill in Sedlescombe, near Rye.

Mother-of-one Mrs Davies, an ex-Miss Rye, said: "I cannot sing their praises enough. They were extremely thorough in ensuring the fire would not reignite.

"Had they been longer in getting here then I suspect the fire would have been a lot more serious. As it turned out, the damage was very minimal."

This morning Mrs Davies said: "A lot has been said about the incapability of the Green Goddesses and the Navy but in my experience they were brilliant."

A military spokesman said: "It sounds like a good piece of intuition on the part of the crew."