Chelmsford's fire chief has praised a teenager who ushered a mother and her daughter to safety from their blazing home last weekend.

Sixteen-year-old Alan Nock was woken by the desperate shouting of next-door neighbour Mike Packham, who had tried to fight the fire at his home with a bucket of water.

But, by the time he had gone downstairs, through the smoke and into the kitchen, the heat was too intense for him to do anything.

"My wife, Suzanne, woke me and said that there was a fire and, just at that instant, the fire alarm went off," said Mr Packham. "The lounge was raging with fire. I realised my wife and daughter were trapped upstairs and I got out of the kitchen door and shouted next door for help.

"There was no way I could get back inside. It was hotter than an oven and the smoke was dense. I never realised how terrible a fire could be -- and my family were in there."

His shouting alerted Boswells College student Alan, by which time Mrs Packham and her 11-year-old daughter, Heather, had clambered, shivering in their nightclothes, on to the pitched roof below a front bedroom.

Together, Alan and Mr Packham helped them down a ladder.

Three fire crews from Chelmsford tackled the blaze, which is believed to have been caused by an electrical fault in a television set.

The Packham family were taken to Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, for smoke inhalation treatment, and are now with relatives

Mr Packham was kept overnight on Sunday in the burns unit of the St Andrews Centre at Broomfield Hospital for treatment to face injuries caused by drips of sizzling hot ceiling material on his face.

Commander Trevor Arm-strong, head of Chelmsford fire station, said: "This young lad thought and acted quickly and assisted in the rescue in an exemplary way."

By Peter Baker

Reporter's e-mail: peter.baker@essex-chronicle.co.uk

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