A mother-of-two said she is lucky to be alive after a smoke alarm, fitted only weeks ago, alerted her to a fire in her son's bedroom.

Health care assistant Janet Weston, 45, of Pasture Rise, Clayton, Bradford, was alone in the lounge when a TV caught fire in her 13-year-old son Dominic's bedroom at about 8pm on Saturday.

"I'm a bit hard of hearing and I heard a faint beeping noise. At first I thought it was an alarm clock upstairs," she said.

"I came out into the hall and there was smoke pouring down the stairs. It was horrible."

She called the fire brigade and was told to get out of the house.

"I suppose I'm lucky to be alive," added Mrs Weston. "If it hadn't been for the alarm I would have been none the wiser and we'd have been in an even bigger mess.

"It took us all night to clear up and the house still smells of smoke."

Joiner Edward Weston, 50, who was out walking the dog with their two children Dominic and Jessica, 12, at time of the blaze, said: "We had the alarms fitted by the fire brigade a couple of months ago and it's a good job we did as who knows what could have happened.

"I would urge everyone to get an alarm as it could save your life."

Firefighter Adrian Bairstow, of Fairweather Green Fire Station, said: "There was a TV and Nintendo game in the first floor bedroom and the fire seems to have been started by an electric fault.

"The son had left the TV on stand-by and gone out to play. If it wasn't for the smoke alarm the bedroom could have caught fire and spread to the rest of the house.''

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