AN ELDERLY man whose home caught fire as he slept narrowly cheated death early today thanks to a smoke detector.

Fire broke out in the ground floor flat in Carlton Gardens, Loose, Maidstone, when the 84-year-old occupant fell asleep on his sofa with a cigarette in his hand.

The cigarette set light to a newspaper, which ignited the plastic of the man’s walking frame.

Smoke activated the alarm which woke the man up and also alerted staff at the Lifeline monitoring service, who called firefighters at 1.33am this morning.

Crews from Blue Watch, Maidstone, arrived within three minutes and donned breathing apparatus before using hose reel jets to put the fire out. They remained at the man’s home to do a fire safety check and ventilate the flat.

Acting watch manager David Giuralarocca said that without the alarm, the man could have died.

He said: "The smoke detector sounding woke the elderly gentleman, which enabled him to leave the room.

"The gentleman has mobility difficulties. Had the smoke alarm not been there or not been working, we could have been looking at a fatality."

The fire caused minor damage to the man’s living room. He was unharmed.