A kitchen was gutted after a fire alarms failed to raise the alarm in a home.

The blaze happened at the home Betoyne Close, Billericay just before 9pm yesterday.

Firefighters are now urging Essex residents to test their smoke alarms regularly after smoke alarms failed to go off during a kitchen fire in Billericay last night.

On arrival, crews reported that the kitchen of a semi detached house was 100 per cent alight and worked to extinguish it by 9:50pm.

While the resident had smoke alarms in his home, they were not working and he noticed the fire himself before getting out of the house.

He was left in the care of the Ambulance Service after suffering smoke inhalation.

The house has been left uninhabitable after the kitchen was destroyed and the house was left smoke damaged.