A man who dozed off while his dinner was cooking on the stove made a lucky escape after a worried neighbour rang the fire brigade.

A woman living on the first floor of the house in Ellison Road, near Streatham Common, called firefighters at Norbury fire station after hearing the smoke alarm going off downstairs at about 7.15pm last night.

One crew attended the blaze and evacuated the house before extinguishing the scorched meal.

A spokesman said everyone inside the house escaped without any injuries.

He said: “There was quite a lot of smoke- he was a very lucky guy.”