Forest that inspired Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood hit by fire

Firefighters in England battled a blaze that broke out in the forest that inspired the Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for the "Winnie the Pooh" books.

Fire crews from several departments worked in "arduous conditions" Sunday night to put out the fire in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, Hannah Scott-Youldon, assistant director for the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, wrote on Twitter.

The fire "took hold quickly" after the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service began receiving calls detailing the forest fire around 9:30 p.m., incident commander Andrew Gausden said in a statement.

British author A. A. Milne, who is most famous for writing the "Winnie the Pooh" poems and books, bought Cotchford Farm in nearby Hartfield, East Sussex, as a country home for his family in 1925, according to Atlas Obscura.

Within Ashdown Forest is a landscape called the Five Hundred Acre Wood, and Milne published his first series of stories about Winnie the Pooh about a year after moving to the edge of the forest, according to Atlas Obscura.

Firefighters left the scene around 10 a.m. Monday. Fire officials do not yet know the cause of the fire but it is not being considered a "deliberate fire" at this time, according to the fire department. An investigation is ongoing.