A pensioner who had been cooking food died after a fire at his flat in Oxford.

Firefighters were called to Lake Street, off Abingdon Road, at about 5pm on Tuesday after a neighbour reported smelling burning and went to investigate.

They broke down the door and discovered the 73-year-old man unconscious and a pan still on the stove.

They tried to resuscitate him until an ambulance crew arrived. He was taken to hospital, where he was certified dead. The man has not yet been formally identified.

A spokesman for the fire service said the incident was not being treated as suspicious.

Neighbours said it was not the first incident in which firefighters had been called to the man's home.

Nick Swarbrick, 47, who lives a few doors from the man's flat, said: "We came home from seeing friends and smelled burning.

"We walked along to the flat because a similar thing has happened in the same flat before. We could see the television was on and smoke was filling the room, so we called the fire brigade."

He said the man had lived in the flat for a number of years.

Arsonists who set fire to a car in Oxford's Blackbird Leys estate on Christmas Eve are being hunted by police.

The wheels of the G-registration Golf, stolen from Meadow Lane, were removed before it was set alight outside Windrush Tower, in Knights Road.