A spate of blazes had retained firefighters working into the early hours this morning.

Three beach huts were ablaze along Lancing seafront at 2.30am and there were two car fires in Cecil Road, Lancing, around 3.30am.

The Royal Navy, which is covering fire and rescue services in Sussex during the national firefighters' strike, sent nearby retained crews to deal with them.

A Navy spokesman could not say whether the fires were started deliberately.

A stand-in Green Goddess engine was called out when a rubbish trolley was set alight in Stoke Abbott Road, Worthing, around 6pm yesterday evening.

Police arrested a boy at the scene.

Earlier in the day, just after 1pm, two Green Goddesses were called to put out an oven fire at the Little Chef restaurant near the Stockbridge Road roundabout, Chichester.

When the crews arrived they found restaurant staff had already managed to extinguish the flames.