Children rescued from fire in bedroom

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus found a boy and a

girl in a smoke-filled bedroom in a house on Wakefield's Portobello estate yesterday morning.

One of the children was found beneath a bed trying to escape the thick smoke coming from a a blaze in another bedroom.

Fire crews said the house was not fitted with working smoke alarms.

The children and three adults, aged 21, 39 and 48, who escaped the fire were taken to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield. They were said to be responding well to treatment for smoke inhalation.

The cause of the fire, at a house in Warren Avenue, is being investigated. It started at around 8.25am.

A fire service spokesman stressed the importance of having working smoke detectors.

Fire crews attended three other house fires over the weekend in West Yorkshire.

At Armley House, Kingsdale Court, Seacroft, Leeds, two children jumped from a first floor window to escape a flat fire just before 2am yesterday. They were not injured. One woman was taken to hospital by ambulance.

On Saturday night an elderly man was treated for smoke inhalation following a bedroom fire in Belvedere Grove, Alwoodley, Leeds and a man suffered the effects of breathing in smoke after a house fire in School Lane, Westborough, Dewsbury, on Saturday night.