A SMOKE alarm may have saved the life of a 16-year-old York girl.

Laura Joyce was one of three women rescued from a block of council flats in the city following an armchair blaze in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Laura, who has lived in her top-floor flat at Buckden House, in Sowerby Road, Acomb, for only three months, was woken up by her smoke alarm at about 1am.

She was terrified to find her bedroom filled with thick black smoke and smoke pouring in under the front door.

Firefighters led Laura outside to an ambulance and she was joined by two other women and a man all suffering from smoke inhalation.

Sub officer Richard Marlein, who attended the blaze said Laura had had a lucky escape and it sent a sobering message that smoke alarms save lives.

Laura said: "My flat was just full of thick black smoke when I woke up - it was really scary. You couldn't see anything - I'm really glad I had a smoke alarm.

"I heard all the fire engines and a fireman came up and told us we could go downstairs."

The fire is believed to have been started by a cigarette discarded in an armchair in a ground-floor flat.

Five fire crews, one with an aerial ladder, attended from York and Acomb fire stations.

Updated: 10:05 Tuesday, April 12, 2005