A 22-year-old man from Leeds has described the moment that a house fire broke out on his street in the early hours of this morning and spoke to LeedsLive about the fear that his home would also be engulfed by the flames.
West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service (WYFRS) were called to reports of a house fire on King's Avenue, Hyde Park, at around 4am this morning and sent four crews to the scene.
Samuel Andrews lives opposite the property where the fire began and although he said that the response from firefighters was "very quick", the blaze quickly became more fierce.
'The whole front of the roof exploded'
"It was about 4am and I woke up because I could smell smoke in my house," said the 22-year-old.
"My bedroom is directly opposite so I looked out and at that point there was only a small light. It hadn't fully started at that point.
"The whole front of the roof then kind of exploded.
"The fire was blowing towards my house too, so I thought it might set fire to my house. The flames were pretty big."
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Crews from Leeds Central and Hunslet fire stations were sent to the scene and an aerial appliance from Bradford also attended to tackle the blaze from above.
A spokesperson for WYFRS has since confirmed that the fire was started accidentally after a radiator leaked into an electrical plug socket and caused a short circuit.
An assessor who was at the property this morning told our reporter: "The top floor is completely burnt out and there's water damage throughout the whole property."
Samuel praised the quick repsonse of the firefighters, who arrived at the scene within five minutes of the blaze starting.
"There were maybe seven or eight firefighters," he said.
"They stood down here [at the end of King's Avenue] and used jets of water to go directly into the top room.
"Then they went into the building on foot. They were here for a couple of hours."
No one is thought to have been injured in the fire and an investigation is underway into its cause.
