FIRE chiefs are warning householders to fit working smoke alarms and keep cigarette lighters away from children after two blazes broke out in just 12 hours.

A 12-year-old boy is thought to have suffered a broken arm after leaping to safety from the first-floor bedroom window of his New Forest home last night. He is believed to have set fire to bedding in the room with a cigarette lighter.

It is understood that the 12-year-old was upstairs in his bedroom in Eastcot Close, Holbury, when the fire broke out at around 6.30pm. He leapt to safety when flames began to engulf the first floor bedroom. His parents and two teenage sisters are thought to have been in the living room when the blaze took hold and rushed outside.

Neighbours heard screams coming from outside the house. Neighbour Sharon Newton, 32, said: "Somebody came to the house and started banging on the door. I came out and they said there was a fire. I saw smoke pouring from the roof."

Immediate neighbours were evacuated from their homes as the blaze took hold. Around 20 firefighters tackled the fire, which gutted the bedroom and loft and caused severe smoke damage to the rest of the house. The family living at the house, believed to be Clive Bennet, his wife Helen, and their two teenage daughters, were being cared for by the fire service's victim support unit last night.

Just hours earlier, a three-year-old, also using a cigarette lighter, set fire to bedclothes in a room he was sharing with his younger brother at a 15th floor flat in Southampton.

17 firefighters were called to the blaze at Millbrook Towers in Windermere Road. Adrian LeMarechal, 34, and his partner, Amanda Trimming, 23, were asleep with their one-year-old daughter, Alana, at around 9.30am when they were woken by the smell of smoke.

The family managed to rush outside, though the toddler's bedroom was gutted in the blaze.

The family have been temporarily re-housed by the council but many of their possessions have been ruined.