A DOG saved a family's life by waking his owner up when fire broke out in the early hours in their York home.

Matthew Hyland said he was in a deep sleep at his house in Acomb Wood Drive when the kitchen was engulfed in thick black smoke.

But Danny Dogeth, a Labrador-German Shepherd cross, came running up the stairs into his bedroom and started barking and gently biting his side.

"I went down and found the kitchen full of smoke," said Matthew. "I then got my daughters Imogen, 13, and Jessica, 16, out of the house and tried to put the fire out with the dog's blanket after wetting it, while a neighbour called the fire brigade."

York Press:

Matthew Hyland in his fire-hit home

He said the consequences would have been devastating had Danny Dogeth - named by his children after Danny Dog in the cartoon Peppa Pig - not woken him up. "If it hadn't been for him, we would all have been dead," he said.

Mr Hyland claimed there was no smoke alarm in the house, after two had been removed by a contractor for his housing association and had not been replaced.

However a spokeswoman for the association, Accent Group, said that according to its maintenance records, the property was fitted with a smoke detector and it had no reason to believe there were any faults.

Mr Hyland claimed he had not initially been offered any alternative accommodation, and his children had had to go away to stay with relatives, but he was pleased to say a property had now been offered a couple of streets away.

He also claimed that when contractors had been due to visit the house to assess it prior to repairs, they had repeatedly failed to turn up.

An association spokeswoman said it appreciated this was a distressing situation and it was working as quickly as possible to get everything back to normal, and had offered alternative accommodation.

"We have been in close contact with Mr Hyland since the incident to try and arrange the necessary repairs,"she said.

"We are currently arranging to fit a new kitchen and make any other necessary repairs and we will keep in close contact with Mr Hyland throughout. The work will be carried out in a timescale to suit Mr Hyland and his family."

North Yorkshire Fire & Service confirmed it attended a kitchen fire at the property early last Thursday, April 21, which was thought to have been started by an electrical fault, and which caused extensive smoke and fire damage to the kitchen and lesser smoke damage to the rest of the property. It said all the occupants were out when firefighters arrived.