A couple woke to find their cottage ablaze -- on their first night in the house.

Peter Dickenson, a tenant in the cottage, who raised the alarm, with fire-damaged items from the home

Angela Garner, 42, and her partner Benn Thacker, 35 escaped unhurt when a loft bedroom caught fire at their rented home in East Challow, near Wantage. Another tenant, raise the alarm.

Thirty firefighters battled to stop the blaze spreading through the row of houses in Park Terrace on the morning of April 11 and confined the blaze to the loft of the two-bedroomed house.

Tenant Peter Dickenson, 32, a builder, was woken by the sound of "crackling" and raised the alarm.

Ms Garner, a support worker, and Mr Thacker, who is employed at the Home Farm Trust, Milton Heights, near Didcot, were asleep in the first-floor bedroom.

Ms Garner said: "Peter shouted that there was a fire - at first I thought I was dreaming. But all we could see was smoke. Peter saved our lives."

All three dashed from the house as Mr Thacker called the fire brigade on his mobile phone.

Ms Garner added: "It was a shock, after only just having moved into the house. We had not even had time to unpack."

Mr Dickenson said: "I was asleep in the loft bedroom when something woke me up - a flame or the pop of wood crackling. Flames were coming up through the floorboards at the side of the bed and I tried to put it out with a towel. But the smoke was getting too much and so I ran downstairs shouting that there was a fire."

Neighbours were evacuated as firefighters fought flames in the upstairs bedroom where roof timbers and floorboards were damaged. The damage has not stopped the three continuing to live in the home.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated but Mr Dickenson believed an electrical fault was to blame, and that a smoke alarm fitted to the mains did not go off because of this.

Mr Dickenson said: "I lost all my belongings in the fire - but it could have been much worse."