One woman was rescued and eight people were led to safety following two fires at a block of flats.

Firefighters were called to the building in North Place, Brighton, twice in less than four hours to tackle two separate blazes.

Sussex Police and East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service are investigating the cause of the fires, which are believed to have been started deliberately.

The first call came at around 9.20pm last night when a fire started in the stairwell of the building, leaving it clogged with smoke.

Control room staff spoke to one woman trapped in her flat until firecrews arrived and led her and a further seven people outside the three storey building.

There were no injuries and crews eventually left the scene shortly before midnight.

They were back again at 12.40am today to deal with a fire that had broken out in an empty ground floor flat and had to rescue a woman who was trapped in the flat next door.

The second blaze was out by shortly after 1am.

A brigade spokesman said: "With the first fire there was mainly smoke damage but in the second incident the flat was very badly damaged.

"An investigation is now being carried out by police and the fire service to establish exactly what happened."