Woman rescued from fire

Jan 16 2008 By Tony Deeley

A TERRIFIED woman was rescued by firefighters today after trying to climb through a bedroom window to flee a blaze started by a cigarette at her Black Country home.

The woman, aged about 30, was asleep upstairs at her home in Wolverhampton when the fire broke out in the living room, setting off newly-installed smoke alarms.

Firefighters arrived to find her leaning from the bedroom window crying for help and choking from the effects of smoke.

She had one leg on the canopy above her front bay window.

The fire crews pitched a ladder to lead the woman to safety and she was taken by ambulance to New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton.

Fifteen firefighters spent up to two hours dealing with the blaze, which hit the end terraced house in Edensor Close, Springfield, about 3.30am.

The fire caused 50 per cent damage to the living room and smoke damage to the rest of the property.

Watch Commander Brian Worrallo of Fallings Park fire station said a carelessly discarded cigarette had set fire to a settee in the living room to start the blaze. "When we arrived the woman was leaning out of the bedroom window with one leg on the roof canopy over the bay window below. We put a ladder up and helped her down to a waiting ambulance. She had taken in a lot of smoke.

"We don't know how long she had been up there. The next-door neighbour had raised the alarm."

He added the woman had two newly-installed working smoke alarms in the house which were going off when the crews arrived and had woken her up to save her.

"There was a large ash tray on the arm of the settee and the fire had started to the side of it. We believe a cigarette had fallen out and smouldered away."