Two men needed treatment after breathing in smoke while trying to put out a fire in Brighton this morning.
They were using buckets of water to try to douse the blaze in a ground floor bedroom in Saunders Park View shortly before 5am.
The pair were treated at the scene by a crew from South East Coast Ambulance Service.
Two fire crews, from Preston Circus and Hove, spent just over an hour bringing the blaze under control.
Firefighters urged the public not to put themselves at risk but to get out and call East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.
Incident Commander Steve Deakin has this warning for the public: “We have two warnings for the public.
“Firstly, we would urge members of the public not to put fires out as these two men ingested a lot of smoke.
“The best thing to do is to get out, call the fire service out and stay out.
“Secondly, the property involved did not have smoke alarms present.
“We would once again remind the public that fitted smoke alarms give an early warning and save lives.
“A ‘quick strike’ was carried out along the street, which involved handing out leaflets to the local residents in the road.
“These leaflets informed them that a serious house fire had taken place and that no alarms were present.
“From our point of view alarms do save lives and we wanted to reiterate to them that they need to have working smoke alarms in their premises.”
The fire service and Sussex Police have begun a joint investigation to establish how the fire started.
