Mother and son rescued after cigarette starts blaze

From the archive, first published Friday 29th Dec 2006.

Firefighters rescued a mother and her four-year-old son from a smoke-filled house in Cross Roads early today.

Three fire engines from Keighley, Haworth and Bingley were called out at 1.40am after a discarded cigarette set alight to a sofa in the lounge of the terraced house in Robert Street.

Philip Brown, crew manger at Keighley fire station, said the house's occupants were alerted by a smoke detector, which was installed less than a year ago.

"They were extremely lucky," he said.

"We were having a busy night - we were already dealing with a big job in Mirfield when this call came in.

"Fortunately there was enough cover available for us to get to the house within five minutes."

He said the mother and her child were trapped in an upstairs room of the house, unable to use the stairs because of the toxic smoke from the smouldering sofa.

He said a fire controller advised the woman over the phone on how she could stop the smoke seeping into the room by pushing a duvet up against the door.

He said once the firefighters arrived they immediately rescued the pair using a ladder.

"The mother was a bit distraught and shocked but neither of them were seriously hurt," he said.

"They spent about three quarters of an hour in the ambulance recovering."

He said firefighters, who used two hose reels - and wore four sets of breathing apparatus - to extinguish the sofa, even managed to save a pet rabbit, which was in a hutch on the ground floor.

"That must have been the luckiest rabbit in Keighley," he said.

"The smoke layer was down to about an inch from where it was. Another few seconds and it would have been a goner."