SMOKE detectors alerted tenants to a fire in a block of flats.

Six people escaped from the building in Daleville Close, Saltersgill, Middlesbrough, unscathed, thanks to smoke alarms being triggered as fumes billowed from a burning television set.

The cause of the fire was an electrical fault.

It led to severe smoke at the premises, in Tuesday night's fire.

Station Officer Steve McCarten said: "It really demonstrates the value of fitting smoke alarms, which actuated and alerted the people upstairs.

"There were five other people in the various flats.''

Mistakenly believing that the woman's son was still in the building, one neighbour attempted to smash a window to get back into the property.

Another dashed back into the smoke-filled building to rescue a pet dog and was admonished by firefighters at the scene.

A Victim Support Unit was called to help the female owner of the television.

* A woman was led to safety by firefighters from a blaze at a flat in Park Road North, Middlesbrough, on Tuesday night.

The cause was an unattended grill pan which caught fire. The woman declined the advice of an ambulance crew to go to hospital for treatment to slight injuries.