A WOMAN in her nineties and a ten-month-old baby were among seven people who escaped from a burning house in Willersey on Tuesday morning.

A family of four, their two grandparents and an elderly relative were woken in the early hours by their smoke alarm. Firefighters have said that without this warning they may all have been dead.

Firefighters from across the North Cotswolds and the Vale were called to the blaze just after 2.30am. By this time the fire, which is thought to have started in a log pile outside the house, was raging through a rear extension.

The crews from Broadway, Campden, Evesham and Moreton soon bought the blaze under control.

Incident commander Alistair Lucking said: "The fire started on the ground floor and quickly took hold in the roof space of a single-storey extension. Because the property was detached and away from the road there was little likelihood that a neighbour or passer-by would have been around at 2am to call for help.

"The kitchen area adjoined the extension and a smoke detector in it was set off before the fire was able to take hold in the main part of the house."

None of the residents was injured, although the elderly woman was treated at the scene for shock.

Gloucestershire Deputy Chief Fire Officer Terry Standing said: "This is yet another example of how important it is to fit and maintain smoke detectors in your home. If this simple battery-operated device had not been there, instead of talking about saving lives today we could be dealing instead with the aftermath of seven needless and completely avoidable deaths."

Police say they are not treating the fire as suspicious.