Fire chief Pip Flowers is urging people to keep mirrors out of sunlight after a fire broke out in a house in Market Lavington.

The fire was caused by sunlight reflecting on to a mirror in a bedroom in the house in Canada Rise, which then set fire to a piece of curtain.

The curtain dropped on to the carpet and set this on fire and a cupboard.

Two fire crews from Devizes attended and put the fire out.

Mr Flowers said it was fortunate that the householders, a couple, had been alerted to the fire soon after it started.

He said: “It was a small fire in a corner of the bedroom, it affected about one metre square of carpet.

"The occupants were due to go out and I think they are very lucky that they hadn’t gone out earlier otherwise we might not have been alerted in time. They smelt smoke in the house and found the fire in the bedroom, it wasn’t enough to set the smoke detector off at that time.

"They couldn’t get in because of the smoke so they closed the door and called us which was the right thing to do. When we got there the smoke detector was sounding. We ventilated the room of the smoke.”

The fire happened at about 2pm on Saturday.

Mr Flowers said it was not uncommon for fires to start by sunlight reflecting on to a mirror.

He said: “People ought to check there’s nothing in their rooms that will reflect or magnify sunlight.”