A YORK safety officer's terrifying first-hand experience of a fire sparked by a discarded cigarette is being used as part of a hard-hitting new campaign launched today.

Carole Patrick, development manager at the Safer York Partnership, and her family were forced to flee their smoke-logged home in Harrogate after a fire took hold in the kitchen. An ashtray emptied into a bin had contained a still burning cigarette end.

Her story is now being used as part of the "Put it out. Right out." campaign - the Government's first advertising drive to focus on smoking as a major fire risk.

Television and radio advertisements will hit home the dangers of not putting cigarettes out properly. Last year 136 people died as a result of fires caused by cigarettes - a third of all fire deaths in the home.

In North Yorkshire there were 43 such fires in 2000, in which 15 people were injured, compared to 35 such fires, which resulted in two deaths and eight casualties in 1999.

In a case study, which is being used to back the campaign's launch, Carole told of her horror when the blaze took hold in October 2000 when she was at home with her three children, Hamish, Fiona, and Samantha, who were respectively aged 10, 17 and 19 at the time.

Carole was woken by Hamish shouting "fire" and went to investigate.

"I opened my bedroom door and was confronted by a wall of thick black acrid smoke. I've never seen anything like it. The stairways and landings were enveloped in a dense black fog and there was an eerie silence," she said.

Choking on the smoke, she called to her children and headed for the front door. She could not find the key and so had to hurl a table through the lounge window.

She and Hamish escaped and raised the alarm.

Samantha managed to escape from the house but Fiona had to be rescued from her bedroom window by firefighters using a ladder after she dialled 999 on her mobile phone.

The family were treated at hospital for the effects of smoke inhalation.

Carole, Samantha and Fiona were all smokers at the time, although Carole has now stopped. The blaze caused £55,000 of damage to the house, which was not fitted with smoke alarms.

Carole said: "Anyone of us could have started the fire. I would urge everyone to make sure they dispose of their cigarette ends really carefully and fit smoke alarms. I would hate anyone to experience what we have been through."

Updated: 08:31 Monday, March 04, 2002