Firefighters praised the 39-year-old quick-thinking builder who used a ladder to rescue his 71-year-old neighbour from an upstairs bedroom at her home on Westfield in Cutsyke.

A blaze had broken out in the woman's living room – believed to have been started by candles – at about 9.15pm on Monday night.

Mr Crawshaw said: "A boy knocked on my door to say there was smoke coming out of the windows so I went around to see, while my wife dialled 999.

"I quickly realised it was a serious fire. The flames were coming out of the bottom window and I couldn't see anything because of the smoke.

"I ran around the front and back of the house, shouting her and shouting her.

"It was only when the wind blew the smoke that I could see her in the top window.

"There was no way anyone could get into the house so I went to my house to get the ladders."

Mr Crawshaw – who runs his own building company – raced back with the ladders and climbed up the house, past the smoke and flames, to help the pensioner down.

He said: "The upstairs window is directly above the living room window and the flames kept coming out. It was so hot I could hear glass cracking in the house. I've never experienced anything like it.

"I was only on the ladder for a short time but my eyes were stinging from the smoke."

Firefighters from Castleford, Knottingley and Featherstone were quickly on the scene and put the fire out while the woman was taken to Pontefract General Infirmary with minor injuries.

Her daughter later thanked Mr Crawshaw for his brave actions in saving her mother.

Mr Crawshaw added: "The adrenalin was going. I was all right when I was helping her but then I didn't stop shaking until about 11pm.

"I did what anyone else would have done. You don't think for yourself really, you just work on instinct."

Castleford watch manager John Lloyd said: "This was a serious house fire cause by candles left unattended. If it wasn't for the swift and decisive actions of Mr Crawshaw then it could have been very serious, possibly even with loss of life.

"What he did was very heroic."

He said the house had smoke alarms fitted but the batteries had been removed and urged anyone who needed smoke detectors to contact their local fire station for them to be fitted free.