MORE than forty firefighters battled to bring a house fire under control last night.

The blaze took hold just after 6pm at Gate Court Farm, Northiam, near Rye, destroying a large section of the roof of the large detached building and damaging part of the first floor.

Firefighters from Hastings, Broad Oak, Bexhill and Rye arrived to find flames shooting from the roof into the night sky.

They climbed on to the roof, where they directed three high pressure water jets straight into the building through the large hole created by the fire.

Clouds of thick smoke billowed into the night sky*.

Leading firefighter Chris Allam, from Broad Oak, was one of the first officers on the scene.

He said: "There were flames coming out of the roof when we arrived and the two occupiers had left the building themselves.

"It was quite a bad fire, more than half the roof has been burnt away and the first floor has been damaged by fire, smoke and water.

"Crews are still damping down the fire and we shall be going back in the early hours of the morning to check everything is okay."

The house is a converted oast house, an agricultural building used to dry hops, and firefighters were able to draw water to tackle the blaze from a nearby pond.

The fire is not being treated as suspicious. Fire investigation crews were at work today to pinpoint the cause of the blaze.

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