A TEENAGE couple say they are lucky to be alive after firefighters rescued them from their smoke-filled Worcester flat.

Ashley Green, aged 19, and girlfriend Sarah Hubbard, aged 18, were fast asleep when, to reach them, two city fire crews started to break down the front door of their flat in Bridge Street in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The couple had been

living at the flat for just six days.

Firefighters had received a call from a resident in a neighbouring property who smelled and saw smoke coming from the corridor of the block of flats.

Candles that had been left on top of a night storage heater had melted and burned through the heater.

Miss Hubbard said: "I woke up and heard banging coming from outside.

"There's always quite a lot of noise here but it was so loud that I thought somebody might have been breaking in. Then I saw

the smoke."

Mr Green rushed downstairs and as he opened the door the firefighters pulled the couple out.

He said: "I can't bear to think what could have happened. We are so lucky and the fire brigade were great."

Miss Hubbard agreed: "I don't know what would have happened if it had not been for the noise, because it was the noise not the smoke that woke us up."

The smoke alarm had not alerted the sleeping couple because the battery was flat.

Mr Green said: "The light

on the alarm was on but obviously there was only enough battery to power the LED."

He added that he was normally safety-conscious, checking and emptying ashtrays, and stressed he had never had night storage heaters before and was not aware of the danger.

The sofa and television were just inches away from the heater.

Luckily, only the heater and door were damaged as nothing caught fire.

The couple - who were unhurt but checked by paramedics for smoke inhalation - said they had now learnt about fire hazards the hard way and warned other people to check and re-check things such as candles and smoke alarms to avoid going through what they had.

Hereford And Worcester Fire and Rescue service spokesman Alec Mackie said it came as a warning to people to check their smoke alarms worked.

He also reminded people not to leave lighted candles unattended, or to put lit or unlit ones on anything that was warm.

He said: "These people were lucky that someone alerted the brigade in the first instance. Otherwise that smoke would have spread and who knows what condition we would have found them in?"