FIREFIGHTERS are issuing advice to residents after a wood burner nearly caused a house fire.

Essex County Fire and Rescue crews from Colchester were called to a property in Heath Road yesterday (January 23).

The fire teams received reports at about 9.05pm that a wood burner in the property had grown out of control.

Crews arrived to find four people had left the property for their own safety before working to extinguish the fire by 9.33pm.

According to the fire service, the damage was contained to the wood burner and chimney area of the property and nobody was harmed.

Now Essex County Fire and Rescue is issuing advice to residents

Watch Manager at Colchester Fire Station, Peter Donovan, said: "Our crews did a really professional job of extinguishing this fire quickly before it spread.

"However, these incidents are particularly common at this time of year when people are using chimneys and wood burners and often haven't had them serviced.

"We believe this incident was caused due to a faulty door seal in the wood burner, which allowed a flow of air in to accelerate the fire.

"This could have been avoided if the wood burner was serviced before use - so please, if you're planning on using your chimney or wood burner, don't take the risk - get them serviced first."