A 75-year-old man owes his life to luck after he escaped a severe house blaze in Bradford.

Crews from Idle and Fairweather Green stations were called to the cottage in Heaton Road, Manningham, and found smoke billowing out of the house.

Neighbours had persuaded the pensioner, the sole occupant, to leave the house after he initially tried to put out the blaze himself.

Firefighters took about two hours to put out the fire – believed to have been started on Wednesday night by a lit cigarette put in a kitchen bin before the man went to bed. There were no smoke alarms in the property, but he fortunately smelled smoke before he fell asleep. The fire destroyed most of the kitchen.

Fairweather Green watch commander Ronnie Goldwater said: “He is very, very lucky to be alive. There were no smoke detectors, he smoked in bed, the cigarette had been disposed of carelessly and the house was full of combustible materials.

“Everything that could be wrong was wrong. If he had been asleep, the consequences would have been terrible.”

Mr Goldwater urged people to close doors when they go to bed, make sure cigarettes were fully extinguished before they were thrown away, and not to try and put out a serious fire themselves.

The fire service plans to install smoke detectors in the house, and speak to neighbouring residents about home fire safety in the coming days.

Keith Nathan, chief executive of the local Age UK branch, said it was especially important that elderly people keep their homes safe from fire, and urged people to keep an eye on elderly family members or neighbours.