A BRAVE man carried a frail elderly woman to safety as a blaze raged in the flat above her.

Clive Dayus carried the woman he knows as “Betty” to a neighbour’s house as flames engulfed the maisonette above her ground-floor home in Chedworth Close, Warndon, Worcester.

Four fire engines attended the blaze, which began in a first-floor flat managed by Worcester Community Housing at 12.20am yesterday and was caused by a discarded cigarette.

Fire crews from Pershore (who were on standby in Worcester), Upton-on-Severn and Bromsgrove tackled the fire while city firefighters attended a major blaze in Upper Tything and a fire at the Throckmorton tip.

A man and a woman were rescued from a neighbouring flat by firefighters.

Mr Dayus, aged 53, who lives next-door-but-one to the blaze, said: “I was in bed. I could smell smoke. I thought, ‘What’s going on’ and I noticed flames coming out of a window.

“I knocked for Betty and she asked who was at the door. She’s about 90 years old. I said, ‘Open the door Betty, it’s Clive’.

“She said, ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, ‘There’s a fire!’ She said, ‘What, in my house?’ I said, ‘There’s a fire upstairs Betty – I will take you out’.

"I know she can’t walk so I wrapped her in her coat and I picked her up in my arms and carried her out to the front.

"A lady over the road took her in.”

He added: “I just went in. I thought, ‘Poor Betty, she can’t walk’. I ain’t no hero or anything. I just went in and got her.”

He tried to get to the other two people, but was confronted with a thick wall of smoke.

With another neighbour they knocked on as many doors as possible before fire crews arrived.

It took 10 firefighters using breathing apparatus to bring the fire under control.

Afterwards ventilation fans were used to clear smoke. Three people had to be re-housed by Worcester Community Housing.

Station Commander Daryl Justice said: “The firefighters who tackled this blaze did an excellent job and no one was injured.

"This type of fire clearly demonstrates the importance of having working smoke alarms in your home.

“Investigations have found that the fire was started by smoking materials.

"I would urge anyone who smokes in the home to ensure that smoking materials are kept well away from bedding and soft furnishings and that cigarettes and matches are fully extinguished before leaving the room or going to bed.”

• Click here for readers' pictures from the Tything incident.