A YOUNG family were lucky to escape after their lounge floor caught fire as they were sleeping.

A couple with a young child fled their burning home in St John’s Road, Westcliff, just before midnight last night after a passerby saw flames through their living room window.

Batteries had been removed from the house’s two smoke alarms and the fire service said the whole ground floor would have been alight had the fire not been spotted.

A spokesman for Southend Fire Station said: “It could have been a lot worse than it was because both smoke alarms had no batteries.

“They were lucky to get out.

“They were very lucky to have someone walking down the street who saw flames through the lounge window and notified them.”

Like many Victorian fireplaces, the wooden floor joists ran into the marble hearth.

The fire burnt away the floor boards and floor joists around the fireplace.

Two firefighters in breathing masks removed the hearth and put out the fire.

They had to tear up about eight square foot of floor boards to get to the burning joists below.

The spokesman for Southend Fire Station, which sent two fire engines to the fire, said: “If the curtains had been shut and no-one noticed, I think the whole ground floor would have been alight.”