Fire investigators are due to begin work at a Georgian house in mid Suffolk which was almost destroyed by a huge blaze last night.

Crews will carry out enquiries and assess the house in Frogs Hall Road, Lindsey Tye, today in an attempt to discover what happened and establish a possible cause.

Dozens of firefighters from 11 stations across Suffolk attended the blaze – which they were called to just before 11pm.

It is understood the fire started on the first floor and quickly spread onto the second and into the roof space.

Crews fought the flames, which tore through the building, from behind with officers sending units in one after the other to tackle the fire.

They managed to get the blaze under control at around 3am.

An aerial ladder platform from Ipswich East station was sent to the scene alongside six fire engines, a water carrier, command unit and two supporting appliances.

Watch commander Carolyn Crabb said: “We were called just before midnight, and when we arrived the property was already heavily smoke logged and there were a lot of flames.

“The first crews on the scene from Ipswich and Hadleigh were able to enter the property and managed to ascertain that the fire started on the first floor.

“It had already gone into the roof space – it’s a three storey property so it spread up over the first and second floor initially.

“We maintained a constant flow of crews attacking the fire from behind, and we also had appliances pouring water on the roof space from the aerial ladder platform above.

“By 3am we had managed to bring the fire under control but overnight we still had crews damping down hotspots to stop the fire restarting.

“Thankfully the property was empty and nobody was inside but we understand it must be very distressing for the owners to see their home like that.”

In total, 14 vehicles attended the scene from stations in Ipswich, Newmarket, Hadleigh, Sudbury, Long Melford, Haverhill, Holbrook, Clare, Needham Market and Ixworth.

According to fire chiefs no-one was trapped inside or missing, and there were no dangerous or toxic substances involved.

Ms Crabb added: “We were quite concerned in the morning because there was a wind warning and it had started to pick up that the fire might have restarted so our crews stayed to make sure and we still have one appliance on scene monitoring.

“It is a Georgian house with some parts of it we understand as being 400 or so years old but it has been added to so other sections are newer.

“There were beams inside the property.

“Today we have a fire investigation officer on the scene - from our view it was a successful operation as we managed to stop it from destroying the property completely.

“But as I said earlier we understand it is very upsetting for a family to see their house in this way.”

The fire’s stop message was called just before 4.45am.