A TEN-year-old boy took his two younger siblings to safety in an upstairs bedroom after a blanket left on the kitchen hob caught fire.

A mother in Whalley New Road, Blackburn, had been baking with her children yesterday afternoon.

 

Sometime later, while she was attending to her baby upstairs, her two-year-old daughter started playing with the knobs on the electric cooker.

The little girl threw her blanket on top of the cooker, unaware that the electric ring was heating up.

The mother smelt smoke and returned to the kitchen to see the blanket alight on the hob.

She opened the back door and threw the blanket outside, while her 10-year-old son took his younger siblings into a bedroom and closed the door to protect them.

Fire crews were called at 6.15pm and used a ventilation unit to clear the smoke.

The mother and the two-year-old were taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital for precautionary checks for smoke inhalation.

Fire officer Lee Cook said: “The occupier’s son, who had remembered his fire safety talk from school, took his sisters and brothers upstairs away from the smoke.

“Although this act displayed courage and common sense, we would advise all occupants to leave the property and do not return to the fire until it is deemed safe to do so by the fire service.”