A COUPLE smashed their way out of their home by throwing a chair through a window after a blaze filled the house with deadly black smoke in the early hours of this morning.

A firefighter said it was fortunate that householder Patrick O'Callaghan, 30, was woken by a noise and discovered the fire quickly enough to get himself and girlfriend Rhoda Lanceley out of the house in Railway Street, Nelson.

At first the couple found themselves trapped by a locked door. Mr O'Callaghan rushed into the front room and threw a chair through the large window to make an escape route.

Miss Lanceley was taken to Burnley General Hospital suffering from shock and smoke inhalation and released after treatment. Mr O'Callaghan was uninjured.

The house was fitted with a smoke alarm but it did not go off. The fire brigade believe the battery may have been flat or the alarm was faulty.

Sub officer Dave Hilliard, of Nelson fire station, said: "This fire shows two important things that homeowners should remember. It's important to have an escape route planned for an emergency like this. There was a mortice lock on the front door and the man couldn't find the key. "In a fire, when it's dark and there is a lot of smoke, it is easy to panic. You should not have to go back towards the smoke and fire to try and find a key.

"It is also important to check your smoke alarm once a month to make sure it is working."

Sub officer Hilliard said the fire had started in an armchair in a back living room between 30 minutes and an hour after the couple had gone to bed. "It's likely to have been caused by a cigarette that's fallen down the side of the chair," he said. "It would have smouldered for quite a time.

"They've been very lucky that it broke out not long after they had gone to sleep. The man heard a noise and came downstairs to investigate and saw the smoke coming out of the living room. He went back to wake his girlfriend and they got out of the house."

The fire caused severe heat and smoke damage to the living room and smoke damage to the rest of the mid-terraced house.

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