A pub landlord says he's mystified as to how his historic fireplace sparked a full-blown chimney blaze on Tuesday.
Three fire engines and police rushed to the Sunny Sailor pub on the banks of the River Chelmer in Maldon, before closing Market Hill, Fullbridge and Mill Lane, after flames were spotted erupting out of the chimney at about 12.20pm.
Officers used chimney rods to tackle the blaze and fully extinguished it by 1.44pm.
Landlord Peter Truyens said he will have the fireplace inspected to work out how flickering flames managed to climb up the chimney.
"We've been running the fire in here for weeks after it started getting cold and because it's one of the nice features here in the pub but then it caught alight," he said. "We have no idea how. It was smoking a lot and flames were coming out of the top of the chimney.
"Apparently it's the soot which catches fire but we don't know for certain until we hear back from the fire service."
Mr Truyens said the pub was back in business by 4pm after cleaning up the effects of the fire. No one was injured.
"I won't say there was excitement because obviously the emergency services had to shut off the roads, but there were lots of people calling and coming on to our Facebook and Twitter websites to see what had happened," he said.
"It was not my best day but it certainly wasn't a dull day."
With the roads not all reopened until about 3.30pm, it meant motorists heading into the town centre were blocked.
Mr Truyens said: "I won't criticise the emergency services because they're here to look after the interests of the town. If they thought they had to do it for everyone's safety then they did the right thing."
The pub, which is more than 300 years old, was bought by Sue Wilson, the wife of the owner of the Blue Boar hotel, in Silver Street, Maldon, in April.
The previous owner, Admiral Taverns, had closed it down for about six months.
The owners are currently building a restaurant at the front of the pub, relocating the toilets to the back and putting in bay windows in a major revamp after reopening in May.
"The pub hasn't had any attention for many, many, years," said Mr Truyens.
