A blaze which killed a family pet and destroyed a room full of furniture was one of the worst flat fires in the past ten years, a senior firefighter has claimed.

Huge plumes of white smoke were seen billowing out of the first floor property today in The Highway in Brighton's Moulsecoomb estate.

The owners were out but when the five fire teams were called out just after noon they found two cats and dog with their noses pressed against the lounge window trying to get out.

All three were given oxygen by ambulance crews but one of the cats did not survive.

It took crews from Brighton, Roedean and Newhaven more than two hours to put out the fire which started in a bedroom where the home owner was organising lots of furniture, clothes and DVDs to be put in the loft.

The room was gutted and the rest of the flat severely smoke damaged. Officers said the fire had been raging for at least two hours before they were called.

They said the amount of burning material made it harder than usual to put out the flames and created more smoke than they had seen for years.

The lounge where the pets had been locked in were next to the bedroom at the centre of the blaze.

Watch commander Grant Eager said: "It was a very serious fire with huge amounts of smoke.

"It was very difficult to extinguish because it had been burning for some time. It kept producing more smoke and as soon as we had put one bit out another part was on fire.

"It is one of the worst flat fires I have seen for five to ten years in the fact that it involved the whole of the bedroom and the problems we had putting it out."