A DRAMATIC image of a house fire in York was captured by a reader of The Press.

David Dodwell took this photograph of a fire which broke out in the attic of a house in Waterdale Park, off Huntington Road, on Sunday.

In total, four fire crews, including the turn-table ladder appliance, from York, Huntington and Acomb battled the blaze.

The fire is being investigated, but is not being treated as suspicious.

Watch manager Rich Hanley said the job of putting the fire out was made more difficult because of the limited access.

He said the alarm was raised just after 2pm of a fire in the attic of a semi-detached house.

When the crews arrived they found flames were already breaking through the roof of the home and were spreading to the next door house, although all the occupants had escaped.

Mr Hanley said: "We used our aerial ladder platform to fight the fire from the roof and we had to remove some tiles to get access to the fire.

"As there was nobody in the premises, it was too dangerous to put crews in because of the effect of the fire on the roof as we didn't want it collapsing on the crews underneath."

He said the crews brought the fire under control within about 30 minutes, but stayed at the scene until after 6pm, damping the area down and making sure it was safe.

The loft spaces in both homes suffered about 90 per cent fire damage, while there was ten per cent fire damage to the first floors.

There was also some water damage caused by the pipes leading to the water tanks melting.

No one was seriously injured during the incident, although a 50-year-old man was taken to York Hospital after trying to tackle the blaze.