A MAN had a lucky escape after a candle fell over and set fire to his plastic bath.

The man in his 50s, who was not bathing at the time in his bedsit, Ampthill Road, Freemantle, Southampton, was alerted to the blaze after hearing a smoke alarm at about 6pm yesterday.

He fled and was uninjured. No-one else was in the building at the time.

For the next two hours crews from Redbridge and St Mary's fire stations stopped the blaze spreading from the bathroom.

However, the house was badly smoke damaged.