Our senior fire officers would be failing in their duty were they not to warn people about taking undue risks when confronted with a blazing home.

There is every likelihood that an inexperienced person could find himself or herself in difficulties after charging into a building with little thought but to help anyone inside. This could give the professional firefighters added problems as they struggled to bring the blaze under control.

But the advice fails to take into consideration the one feature that sets the human race apart: compassion. It would take someone with either a steely heart or an inflated feeling of self-preservation to stand aside when the lives of others might be in danger.