A MAN suffered serious burns to his legs after his bedroom was engulfed by flames when a television caught fire.
Neighbours said the man, in his early 20s and named locally as Jordan, was left screaming in agony with melted plastic on his skin after being caught up in the blaze while he slept in the early hours yesterday.
The TV went up in flames at around 2am, shortly after Jordan had gone to bed, and when he woke the bedroom was well alight.
Jonathan Devlin, 37, who lives three doors down from the blaze in Bivel Street, Burnley, said he and his partner, Sylvia Greenhough, 49, were woken up when Jordan knocked at the door.
He said: “He knocked on the door and he was screaming in pain. He could barely walk.
“He said his dog was still inside so I went in. The dog was downstairs and there was just some smoke down there. I managed to get the dog and get him outside.”
The black terrier, called Sooty, escaped the fire uninjured and was being looked after by family in the Brierfield area yesterday.
Sylvia said: “I think he had stepped off the end of the bed and his legs had been burnt by the flames. You could see where the plastic had stuck to his skin.
“He was in a lot of pain. He was lying on the grass opposite the house screaming for a while.
“He’s in Royal Preston Hospital now and his family have gone up to see him.
“He’s a lovely lad. Very mature for his age. He has lived there for about a year.”
The heat from the fire caused the upstairs bedroom window to shatter while neighbours were outside the end-terraced house.
Jonathan said: “There was a big bang and the glass flew out from the window.
“Then a couple of minutes later there was another explosion from inside the house. The fire brigade threw the TV out of the bedroom window when they got in there.
“The upstairs is completely gutted, it has made a big mess of the house.”
Another neighbour, Andrea Sproule, said: “There was a lot of flames coming from the bedroom window.
“You could hear him screaming in pain, it sounded terrible.
“The fire bridage, police and ambulance were here for quite a while.”
Firefighters used specialist cameras and breathing apparatus to help extinguish the blaze.
Watch manager Gary Hargreaves, from Burnley Fire Station, said: “There was no working smoke alarm in the property, which potentially delayed the discovery of the fire.”
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