A woman suffered second degree burns to her hands and face after fire broke out at her Menston flat.

A fire chief said Susan Brooks, believed to be an air traffic controller at Leeds Bradford Airport, may have been hit by a fireball and was lucky to escape with her life.

She was taken to Wharfedale Hospital, in Otley, by a neighbour after fleeing the blaze that gutted her first floor flat in Bradford Road, Menston, shortly after 8pm yesterday.

Three fire crews from Rawdon, Shipley, and Otley were called to the fire which took around an hour to bring under control. Leading firefighter Simeon Sharp, of Rawdon fire station, said: "When we arrived there was thick, black smoke and flames coming out of the back bedroom window. There was smoke coming out of the front windows and the door. It was even coming out of the eves.

"We think she was watching television in the front room and smelt smoke coming from the back room.

"She must have opened the door and been hit with a big ball of fire. Somehow she managed to get out and down the stairs outside. She's extremely lucky to be alive. She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs just totally shocked. She had quite bad facial burns and burns on her hands.

"We weren't sure if there was anyone else in the flat so we sent four firemen in breathing apparatus in to check it out, but luckily she was on her own.

"We're not a hundred per cent sure how it started yet but we believe that it might have been a dropped cigarette."

It is believed that the large amount of acrid black smoke pouring from the flat had come from a collection video tapes that had caught fire in the bedroom.