A man was taken to hospital with burns after he woke up in the middle of the night to find his kitchen on fire.

The resident, of Wordsworth Road, Hampton Hill, tackled the flames himself with buckets of water.

Firefighters said the blaze started after the man tried to clean the fat off his pans the previous evening.

They arrived at the house at about 3.30am on Thursday, September 20, but the kitchen was 25 per cent damaged.

Paramedics took the man to Kingston Hospital where he was treated for burns.

Andy Packer, watch manager at Twickenham fire station, said: “If you have a fire just close the door, get the fire brigade out and stay out. He would have been so much better off if he had called us.

“He was very lucky. It could have gone so wrong.”