AN 85-year-old woman suffered with smoke inhalation when her bed caught fire during the night.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service received the call shortly after midnight last Friday to attend a fire at a bungalow on Plantation Way, Bordon.

The fire was caused when an electric blanket caught fire during the night - causing the whole bed to catch alight.

The elderly couple who live in the bungalow were woken by flames surrounding their heads.

The man was able to extinguish the fire with water from the bathroom but his wife had inhaled some of the smoke.

A Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said: "The blanket had caused a great deal of smoke and the lady had ingested it and was struggling to breath when firemen arrived on the scene.

"When they got there, first aid was administered to the lady before the ambulance arrived - she recovered, though, and did not have to be taken to hospital.

He added: "The couple may have also suffered minor burns. It was lucky that the fire did not spread from the bed where it started."

From the time of the call, the fire brigade took 10 minutes to arrive. By just after 1 am, the house had been secured.

The Hampshire Fire and Rescue spokesman explained that the couple were very lucky that the fire had occurred in the room in which they were sleeping in rather than in another bedroom, or in their kitchen, as they did not have a smoke alarm and would not have been woken.

"Smoke kills," he said. "They did not have a smoke alarm and would not have been alerted to the fire if it had been in another room. The crucial message here is that everyone should have a smoke alarm.

"The damage to the house was thankfully very minor. The couple are shocked and maybe slightly burnt and the lady did suffer smoke inhalation but it could have been much worse."

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service sent firemen up to Plantation Way later on Friday to hand out smoke alarm leaflets to people living in the area surrounding the bungalow.

They also installed smoke alarms to some of the houses.

Bordon Fire Station Sub-officer Kevin Francis said: "The incident was caused by a faulty electric blanket. The couple were very, very lucky as the man was woken by flames surrounding his head."

He added: "We are going to install smoke alarms to the whole of the estate in the following weeks, if people want them."

The incident has come in the midst of a Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service initiative, being undertaken in conjunction with Trading Standards, that aims to educate people about the dangers of electric blankets.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue say that old or damaged electric blankets cause more than 5,000 fires a year. 

Research has shown that electric blankets 10 years old or older, still in use in homes in Britain, are responsible for 99 per cent of the fires caused by electric blankets - and each year 20 people are killed and 100 injured in such fires. 

In the past six years over 4,600 electric blankets have been checked in Hampshire, approximately 45 per cent of which failed tests. 

Trading Standards in partnership with Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service and most district councils are organising free checks around the county this autumn. 

The provisional dates are September 27 to October 2 and October 11 to 16

Checks were being carried out at Headley Fire Station yesterday (Thursday) and will take place on Wednesday, October 13 at Petersfield Fire Station.