When staff went to open up a town centre supermarket this morning they did not expect to be confronted with the smell of smoke.

An employee at Sainsbury's in Bouverie Road West, Folkestone, arrived to open up the store at 5.30am and with the fire alarms going off she went looking for the flames.

Unable to find them, she dialled 999 and firefighters came on the scene and found a small rubbish fire which had caught light to a low chipboard ceiling in a stairwell at the rear of the building.

The area is not often used by the public, but crew manager Mick Scott-Smith said that he believed rough sleepers had been able to get in there for shelter in the past.

It is not known how it had started.

"The fire had been smoldering away for quite some time," he added.

Mr Scott-Smith said the woman was right to call the fire service and to never hunt a fire out.

He said: "They had just turned up to open up and they smelt smoke.

"The woman called us and it was absolutely the right thing to do."

The Folkestone crew was there for an hour and a quarter.

A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: “We called the fire brigade and no customers or colleagues were affected.

"We are now working closely with the fire brigade and the police."