A five-year-old girl has been hailed a "little hero" by her family after she saved them from a raging house fire.

Margaret Violet Cannon was with her three-year-old sister Cizzier and brother Thomas, two, when fire broke out in their bedroom in Halifax Road, Woodside.

The cool-headed youngster ran downstairs shouting "fire, fire" and alerted her mum and dad Maria and Thomas Cannon. The parents, both 23, who are separated, crawled upstairs and braved thick black smoke to rescue their remaining children.

Speaking today from her sister-in-law's caravan where the family is staying, Maria said the whole family was lucky to be alive.

She said: "Margaret is our little hero. If she hadn't come downstairs we'd never have known until it was too late.

"It was pitch black with smoke upstairs, you couldn't see your own arm in front of you. I found Cizzier but we just couldn't find little Thomas.

"Then he just came out of no-where and grabbed hold of his daddy's leg. I grabbed the kids in my arms and we just rolled down the stairs.

"Thomas can be a bit of firebug with matches and lighters but I don't think he understands the seriousness of what he did."

Firefighters from Odsal station fought for more than hour to contol the blaze, which started just before 6.45pm yesterday.

Station officer Bob Yorke, of Odsal station, said: "When we arrived the parents were sitting outside with blackened faces and suffering from inhaling a lot of smoke. They had obviously put themselves at risk to get their children out of the house and if they hadn't it could have been a much more serious incident.

"We gave the parents oxygen before the family was taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary suffering from the effects of smoke."

The upstairs of the house was badly damaged.

Station Officer Yorke said the cause of the fire was being investigated.