A BEDROOM in a house in Burnley went up in flames after it is believed a five-year-old boy set fire to his mattress.

Firefighters were called to the house in Colne Road on Saturday morning by the boy's family.

The bed was destroyed, there was fire damage to the carpet and floor boards, severe smoke damage to the bedroom, which belonged to the little boy's sister, and smoke damage to the rest of the first floor rooms, which included a couple of bedrooms.

There were five people downstairs in the house when the fire happened, including the boy's mother, her boyfriend, a baby and two other children but no-one was hurt.

Leading firefighter Neil Mark said: "Apparently the little boy had been playing with matches in his sister's room.

"The house did not have any smoke alarms -- if it had it would have given them much earlier notice that something serious was happening.

"They were very lucky. If it had happened when they were asleep it could have been a different story.

"I have spoken to the child's mother and she is quite happy for us to speak to him.

"We run a scheme for this sort of thing called Fire Awareness Child Education scheme (FACE) where we go out and talk to the children to make them aware of how dangerous it is to play with matches.

"It's a fairly new scheme but it already has a 95 per cent success rate."