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| Six rescued from blaze in flats | Six rescued from blaze in flats |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Six people have been rescued from a fire at flats in south Belfast, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service has said. | |
| Fire crews were called to the property, on Eglantine Avenue, at about 0200 GMT. | Fire crews were called to the property, on Eglantine Avenue, at about 0200 GMT. |
| They arrived to find dense smoke in the ground floor hallway and people trapped in the upstairs flats. | |
| Officers used ladders to rescue them while fire teams put out the fire in the hallway. It is being treated as suspicious. | Officers used ladders to rescue them while fire teams put out the fire in the hallway. It is being treated as suspicious. |
| The smoke was coming from a burning mattress on the ground floor of the house, converted into six flat units on three floors. | |
| Controllers from the Fire and Rescue Service advised those trapped what to do until the fire crews arrived. | |
| Watch commander Ashley Jeffries said it was fortunate that fire alarms were working at the flats, otherwise "we could have been talking about fatalities". | |
| "A mattress was located in the rear escape corridor - what seems to have been a lot of papers was placed on it so we are treating it as suspicious," he said. | |
| "PSNI are actually in attendance with scenes of crime, I believe, this morning." | |
| The rescued people - including a family - were checked by ambulance crews for smoke inhalation and after treatment were allowed to stay with friends or relatives. |