Residents were told they could not return to their homes last night after a fire ripped through a block of flats in Newmarket yesterday.

Eight crews spent over an hour battling the blaze which had broken out at a block of flats in George Lampton Avenue.

West Suffolk fire services were called at around 7pm yesterday (April 9) to fire, which is thought to have started between the exterior and interior walls of the timber wood flats.

Two fire crews from Bury St Edmunds, one from Newmarket and four from Cambridgeshire battled the blaze for nearly an hour and a half before it was under control.

A spokesperson from Suffolk Fire and Rescue said: “We used our cobra equipment to tackle the blaze, which worked perfectly as the fire had started between the brickwork of the building.

“No one was injured and everyone got out safely”.

Cobra was a new piece of equipment which was fitted to fire crews in west Suffolk back in March this year.

The £240,000 cutting edge technology uses a mix of water and a cutting agent ejected at high pressure through a special nozzle on a lance to cut through building materials.

A spokesman for Suffolk police said: “The fire service attended a fire last night at homes in a series of flats in Newmarket.

“As far as we can tell there is nothing suspicious about the fire.

“A number of residents were displaced. We attended just as support.”