GUESTS at a luxury hotel were evacuated after a fire started in the building's cellar.

Fire crews from Cockermouth and Keswick rushed to Overwater Hall Hotel, near Uldale, to tackle the blaze.

This started when a hot ash from an open fire caused a spark which hit some plastic which caught alight.

The crews were at the scene for one hour and 30 minutes, while they tackled the blaze using a hose reel jet and a thermal image camera.

Angela Hyde, one of the hotel's owners, told the News & Star the fire had been small and "contained" within the cellar.

"We did have a small fire. It was contained in our cellar," she said.

She explained that the ashes from the hotel's open fire fall into the cellar and that things had returned to normal following the blaze, at 5.50am yesterday (Sunday).