A young child hoax called a fire service by falsely reporting a fire.

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue said in a tweet this afternoon that its control room received a call from a child claiming there was a fire at an address before they hung up.

Fire crews were dispatched while efforts to call the young child back were to no avail, the fire service said.

Fire crews discovered on arrival that the call had been fake.

The fire service tweeted: “Control received a call from a young child who said 'fire', gave an address and cleared the line. Control mobilised an appliance and efforts were made to call back but to no avail. The crews discovered on arrival that this was a Hoax call.”

It has also issued a warning following the incident, saying that “hoax calls take life-saving resources away from those who really need them”.