Two jump out of window to escape blaze

A MAN and child jumped from a first floor window to escape a fire which broke out in flats in Calder Crescent around 10pm last night. They did not need hospital treatment. Firefighters also battled two separate chip shop fires in Livingston overnight, at Minerva Food Bar in Kingsport Avenue, Howden, and La Capanna in the Carmondean Centre.

Following a separate incident, a mother-of-four has told how her young children raised the alarm after a blaze broke out in a sleeping neighbour's flat. Julie Gardner's sons, aged 13 and 14, told her they could smell burning in the flat in Wester Hailes Park on Friday. The 40-year-old discovered her neighbour's flat was alight. She said: "I checked all over the flat before realising it was the guy downstairs whose flat it was. The fire brigade had to break down the door because he was sleeping.

"I had fairly bad smoke inhalation and had to get oxygen, but the neighbour was fine."