Three people were taken to hospital last night following a fire involving a camping stove on a canal boat in North Oxford.

Fifteen firefighters were called shortly after midnight to the narrow boat on the Oxford Canal, near Godstow Road, after the stove and a gas cylinder caught fire.

Paul Molloy, incident commander based at Rewley Road, said two men and a woman suffered burns to their hands but were not seriously injured and were taken to hospital as a precaution.

He said: “The stove must have been leaking and ignited. When it caught fire the people on the boat threw it onto the towpath to stop the fire spreading on the boat, and the boat was not damaged.

“It could have been a more serious incident but fortunately the people involved were not seriously hurt.”