A neighbour has described seeing a blaze nearly “seven feet” tall during a shed fire in South Oxhey this afternoon.

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue raced to Hayling Road at 2.50pm after eight calls about a shed fire down the side of a terraced house.

One neighbour has described seeing a "seven foot" blaze from his house, before he and his friend ran to tackle the fire.

Sean Good, Watch Commander from Rickmansworth Fire said: “For reasons that we are not sure of yet, there was a shed fire at the end of terraced housing.

“On arrival, there was a well developed fire which had broken the window of the house.

“It could have been anything that started the fire. We are getting more and more calls where fires have started because the sun has reflected off of something.

“But we are only surmising at this stage".

Crew Commander Dave Tams said if fire crews had arrived “three minutes later”, they would have been dealing with a “two house fire”.

Firefighters believe there were cans of paint stored in the shed at the time but an investigation will be launched into the cause of the fire.

One neighbour said: “I was going upstairs to get a shirt and went into my brother’s room and I saw a fire blazing from the shed.

“I then ran down the stairs and tried to back the blaze from my side of the fence.

“But I couldn’t tackle it because it was getting hotter and so I ran out onto the street and called the fire brigade.

“It was about seven feet tall.

“It was quite scary. I was thinking ‘what should I do'.

“There is a bit of damage on the face of my house and the window has cracked.”

Nobody was injured in the blaze.