FIREFIGHTERS worked for nearly nine hours to tackle a large fire at a derelict Grade II listed building in north Essex.

Crews were called to a destructive blaze at the Grange building, in Fronks Road, Dovercourt, on Tuesday at about 8.54pm.

Upon arrival, they found a large detached building - a former Sixth Form college - engulfed in flames, with the fire continuing to spread rapidly throughout. 

Gazette: Flames - crews worked for nine hours to tackle the flamesFlames - crews worked for nine hours to tackle the flames (Image: Dovercourt Fire Station)

Two crews from Dovercourt had rushed to the scene and after seeing how quickly the fire was developing immediately requested a further two crews from Colchester and Manningtree.

An aerial ladder platform from Colchester was also called into action to help extinguish the fire. 

Due to a difficult water supply, a water bowser from Halstead was requested to shuttle water to the scene. 

The crews worked throughout the night using an aerial ladder platform to tackle the fire in sections.

Gazette: Fire - an aerial shot of the huge fire at The GrangeFire - an aerial shot of the huge fire at The Grange (Image: Dovercourt Fire Station)

Crew manager Norman Gooch from Dovercourt Fire Station was one of the first firefighters on the scene and was the initial incident commander.

He is an on-call firefighter at the fire station and was just settling down for the evening when he was paged about an inferno near the fire station. 

Two crews from Dovercourt then rushed to the scene and saw how quickly the fire was developing.

Gazette: Emergency - crews were called to the scene just before 9pm last nightEmergency - crews were called to the scene just before 9pm last night (Image: ECFRS)

Mr Gooch said: “We turned up to a well-developed fire which had likely been burning for some while.

"On arrival, flames were already coming out of the windows and roof on one side of the building, at this point it was going to be hard to save but crews worked extremely hard to save the rest of the building.

"We have been called there a number of times over the years with reports to people setting fires inside the building, it is a great shame as it is an important part of history and a local landmark.”

Firefighters worked to extinguish the fire by 5:45am.

The fire service has said two crews remain on scene monitoring hotspots. 

Firefighters have since worked to determine the cause of the fire and found it could have been caused accidentally or deliberately, both are possibilities.