FIREFIGHTERS carried a woman unconscious from a smoke-logged flat in Lowestoft, while four others were treated for smoke inhalation after a blaze filled it with toxic fumes.

Four crews were called to the fire in Stanley Street at about 6pm last Friday and used breathing apparatus to enter the home of a woman, believed to be in her 30s, who was subsequently taken to hospital.

John Tiffen, Suffolk fire service group manager, said they arrived to find a severe fire in a ground floor flat in a housing association block.

The woman was recovered unconscious from a corridor and taken to hospital, he said.

The fire started in a chair and the material had given rise to a lot of toxic smoke which she had breathed, he said.

'Our concern was also that there are 19 flats and we had to make sure everyone was safe and accounted for.'

Three crews from Lowestoft South station and a further appliance from North Lowestoft attended, with residents evacuated from the 'heavily smoke-logged' building, according to a Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service spokesman.

The scene was eventually cleared at about 7pm, with the block's other residents able to return to their flats after the blaze. A fire investigation is under way.

Nathan McKernan, 19, of Newsons Meadow, Lowestoft, said: 'I was just sitting down with a friend who lives in a flat on the first floor when somebody knocked and said there was a fire downstairs. There was lots of black smoke coming up.'

A Lowestoft police spokesman confirmed the blaze was 'not being treated as suspicious'.