Crews have rescued a person from a smoke logged flat which was on fire in north Essex.

The call was received to a property in High Street, Walton-on-the-Naze, at about 8.15pm last night (May 25).

Two appliances from Frinton arrived to find a fire in the first floor of the flat.

Fire crews wearing breathing apparatus tackled the blaze with a hose reel.

The fire was extinguished by about 8.50pm before crews ventilated the flat of smoke by using a high pressured fan.

It was also a busy day for the Thames Coastguard. Just after 2.35pm a call was received from two people onboard the Stephanie Louise vessel which was taking on water.

The vessel was anchored in Hamford Water so the crew could locate the leak.

Thames Coastguard patrolled the area and kept watch as it made its way to the River Orwell where it was met by the Felixstowe coast patrol before being towed into Levington Marina.

At 9.45pm the coastguard received several 999 calls from people seeing distress flares in the River Blackwater near Mersea Island.

The West Mersea Coastguard Rescue team investigated but found the calls were false alarms caused by a number of Chinese sky lanterns being released in the area.