'A smoke alarm is a life-saver'

Mrs Campbell, 40, of Stile Road, Headington, Oxford, forgot to put out a candle in the downstairs toilet of her terrace home before she went to bed.

She said: "It's my fault - I left the candle lit and the glass jar got hot and melted some plastic but luckily it was just smoke and not a fire.

"I would advise every family to get smoke alarms fitted upstairs and downstairs in their homes."

During the early hours of Friday morning, she and her husband Ken, both 40, were woken by the smoke alarm.

The burning candle, left by Mrs Campbell on top of the toilet, had started to set fire to the plastic cistern but the smoke alarm alerted the family in time for Mr Campbell to tackle the blaze, prevent it from spreading and alert firefighters.

Bob Speakman, the fire service's incident commander, who was called to the home at 5.45am on Friday, said: "Another five minutes and we would have been dealing with a completely different situation, and if the fire had spread it could have cut off the family's escape route.

"If this family had not had smoke alarms fitted, then we could have been looking at a rescue situation with a family-of-five trapped on the second floor.

"This incident shows the importance of getting smoke alarms fitted, and our advice is that if people want to use candles, they should place them on a hard ceramic surface, which will not burn.

"In this instance, the candle was placed in a glass dish, which heated up and the plastic toilet cistern started to burn. This family had done everything right because they had smoke alarms fitted on both floors."

Despite being woken in the night, Mrs Campbell's three children, aged eight, seven and four were all at school on time on Friday.

Her two daughters attend St Andrew's Primary School in Headington, while her son attends Magdalen College School in Oxford.

For a free smoke alarm and home fire safety check, call 08000 325999.