A TEENAGER is lucky to be alive after a burning candle set fire to a pile of clothes in his bedroom while he was asleep.

Stephen Allan, 14, who lives with grandmother Joan in Dorking Crescent, Clacton, thought he had extinguished the candle's flame, which was on top of a chest of drawers, before he went to bed.

But the flame was still lit, and as Stephen went to sleep, a pile of clothes, which were also on top of the furniture started burning.

The first Stephen knew about the blaze was when he woke up coughing due to the thick black smoke at about 11.45pm.

He said: "I couldn't see anything, so I got under the covers and called my nan on the house phone from my mobile."

In a blind panic, his nan Joan, 67, rushed into her grandson's room, scratching the skin from her arm in the process.

She said: "I opened the door and realised the chest of drawers was on fire.

"Stephen ran out, then I called the fire brigade and we stood in the garden in our pyjamas until they came."

Stephen added: "The flames were about three foot high, and the smoke had turned my nostrils black."