QUICK-thinking heroes have spoken of the moment they rescued a mother and her two young children who were trapped in their smoke-filled home.

They put ladders up to a bedroom window to pluck Angela Mailly, her toddler son Declan and daughter Naomi to safety. The family were all taken to Bury General Hospital for checks.

The rescuers grabbed ladders from a nearby workshop as the terrified mother screamed for help at a front bedroom window of the house in Parkinson Street, Haslingden.

She passed Declan through the top part of the window to neighbour Fred Gill, 58, who lives in nearby Lincoln Street.

Mr Gill said: "It was only a short ladder and I had to reach up and get hold of the little lad by his pyjamas and passed him down the ladder."

"The smoke was bad, it was black."

Sean Breslin, who lives in Laburnum Street, and his brother, Tony, who lives nearby in Haslingden, went up a longer ladder to rescue little Naomi and her mother.

The brothers were setting off to their work as roofers when fire broke out at the house at 9am yesterday.

Sean said: "Some of the other neighbours had a ladder up and had already got one of the kids out but it wasn't long enough so we got another ladder and went up for Angela and the older child.

"It happened very quickly. You don't really think about what you're doing.

"We just acted on impulse as anybody would when there are children stuck in a fire." Craig Hardman, 32, who works at Lincoln Street garage, broke in the front and back doors with an axe to try and reach the family but was beaten back by the thick smoke.

Adam Fewings, who works with him at the kitchen and bedroom manufacturing workshop, rushed to the house with ladders.

Craig said: "Sean and Tony did most if it. All I did was get an axe and put the doors in."

The family's next door neighbour, Albert Holden, said:"There were people gathered in the street looking up shouting 'Get them out, do something'.

"The mother was panicking because she could not get down the stairs because of all the black smoke."

The fire started in a settee in the lounge. The fire brigade said it was not suspicious.

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