Dramatic pictures show how quickly a massive fire took hold.

In just seconds the fire at Littlehampton Harbour spread wildly out of control, forcing people to run away from it.

An explosion then followed with flames reaching 100ft, visible from outside of Sussex.

Shipyard owner Robert Boyce, from Littlehampton, said the building which has been in his family for four generations was not insured. He said all the irreplaceable archives of historical ship designs – many by Reg and Graham Chalfield – has been destroyed.

An investigation into the fire is still ongoing, but it is thought a spark from an incinerator on the site had landed on some heating oil which caught light triggering the huge fireball.

Mr Boyce, who runs Osborne of Arun, said: “The incinerator is used to burn paper and wood. It is suspected somebody was not thinking and inadvertently lit the incinerator and a spark landed on the domestic oil. Mercifully no one was killed or injured.”

Mr Boyce’s great-grandfather William Osborne started the shipyard in the early 1900s. It made torpedoes during the world wars and lifeboats for the Arun Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI).