A family had a lucky escape with their young daughter after a fire broke out at a terraced house next door.
The mother of the four-year-old girl was heard shouting “grab the baby” to her partner after being alerted to the flames taking hold of their neighbour’s home.
Luckily, the child’s father managed to grab hold of the youngster in time for them to flee the house and make it out onto the street as smoke billowed from a nearby roof.
The frantic escape was one of several evacuations amid dramatic scenes in Bootle, Merseyside, last night, reports the Liverpool Echo.
They unfolded after fire took hold of a terraced home on Knowsley Road at around 8.30pm.
Smoke poured onto the main road, capturing the attention of a passing driver who stopped his car to bang on those homes in most danger.
One next door neighbour recalled: "It was a passerby in a car who saw the smoke coming out of next door, they said 'get out, get out, the house is on fire'."
She said she had noticed the smell of smoke moments earlier and initially thought: "Who is burning wood at this time?"
Another neighbour said: "It sounded like a police raid, someone was pounding on the door, screaming through the letter box. My wife opened the door and saw all the smoke billowing. She said 'grab the baby'. I grabbed her and went out. The smoke was just billowing from the top of the roof.
"All we could do was watch as the firefighters tried to battle it."
One man in a neighbouring property, who asked not to be named, said he was putting his kids to bed when somebody started "hammering" at the door.
"I opened the door and didn't really hear what they were saying, somebody was screaming 'get out, the house is going to set on fire'," he recalled.
"I had no idea what was going on and was just getting ready to watch Doctor Who."
The couple and their two children left the home and watched as fire engines and police cars arrived at the scene.
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service was alerted to the blaze at 8.26pm and on the scene at 8.30pm, finding the first floor and attic well alight.
Nine crews were involved in the incident. Two people who lived in the house where the blaze broke out were treated by the North West Ambulance Service. They were outside the property when emergency services arrived.
The fire is thought to have taken hold of an attic bedroom at the back of the property, with severe damage believed to have been caused. The first floor windows were open on the front of the home, which appeared largely unaffected, on Tuesday morning.
Roof tiles had been removed by fire crews seeking to access to flames, and neighbours said damage was visible to the back of the home.
The front door of a neighbouring property, thought to have been recently re-decorated, was boarded up, however.
Some of the nearby families stayed elsewhere overnight.
The woman who lived next door said her house had not been damaged and praised fire crews for their work.
"They were in and out of my house quite a few times and they went into the loft, they always made me feel safe. Before they left me, one came in and checked with me to make sure there was no water coming in,” she said.
A red and white cordon erected by the fire service last night had been removed by Tuesday morning. Two police vehicles remained at the scene.
