Man is lucky to be alive after house blaze near to Batley Bulldogs ground

Watch Commander Adrian Bairstow at Batley Fire Station said when he arrived at the home in Heritage Road, near to the Batley Bulldogs ground, the man was wondering around outside ‘black with soot’.

It is believe an electrical fault started the fire in the living room of the three-storey house on Sunday morning, while the man slept upstairs.

When he woke he had to walk straight past the fire to get outside.

Watch Commander Bairstow said there wasn’t a smoke alarm in the house.

“The whole living room was on fire,” he said.

“The windows had broken and toxic smoke was billowing out, as well as flames. The occupant is extremely lucky to be alive.”

The man, thought to be in his 30s, was taken to Dewsbury and District Hospital suffering smoke inhalation.

Watch Commander Bairstow added: “It’s not very often we get called to fires of this severity.

“Had this house had smoke alarms not only would they have woken the man up, making him aware of the fire in his house and given him lots of time to get out of the house safely, but they may also have reduced the damage caused by the fire.

“Because he was asleep the fire was allowed to develop, and once the windows broke they allowed more oxygen into the room.

“Everything in that room was on fire. If there were working smoke alarms in the house it would never have got to that stage.”

Fire crews from Batley, Dewsbury and Mirfield attended the blaze, which started at around 10.15am. They worked for around three hours to put the fire out and carry out safety checks.