Mum Gillian Keighley, 31, woke in the early hours of Sunday morning and went downstairs to find the kitchen on fire at her family home in Birch Grove, Bilton, with black smoke billowing through the house.

She rushed upstairs to her 15-month-old baby girl, Leah Rose, and little boy Kai, five, but couldn't get back down through the thick smoke on her stairs.

It was the bravery of her neighbour, Murray Leighton, who heard her screams, that got her and her family to safety.

Miss Keighley said she woke shortly before 3am to the wail of her fire alarm. She went downstairs but was overcome by a cloud of smoke.

"This huge cloud of black smoke just covered me," she said.

She ran back upstairs and moved the children to the front bedroom, desperately dialling 999 on her mobile phone.

"I was shouting out of the window, and my next door neighbour came running. By that time I was hysterical.

"He ran upstairs and got my little boy out. He came back in to get my daughter and told me to get out first. I wouldn't go until I knew she was safe.

"If it wasn't for him I don't know what would have happened."

Dad Iain Dunn was at a friend's house nearby, when he heard neighbours shouting in the street as they tried to reach Gillian and the children.

He said: "I heard a woman scream. I knew something was wrong instantly, and rushed over. Half the street was there helping us, we couldn't thank them enough. They risked their own lives for us.

Of Murray he said: "He's a hero, we have a lot to thank him for."

Murray, who lives two houses down from the family, was on his way home from a friend's 40th birthday party. As he put his key in the lock, he heard Gillian's shouts from the upstairs window. He ran to the house, kicked the door down, ran in and smothered the fire with a coat.

"I shot upstairs and grabbed Kai, passed him to somebody outside and then went back in for her and the baby," he said. "It was well alight when I got in there. It was blazing up to the ceiling.

"It was a case of getting the fire smothered and getting the kids out. It just didn't occur to me that it was heroic, I just did something that anybody would do. I'm certainly no superhero."

Miss Keighley called the emergency services and two fire engines from Harrogate's White Watch brigade arrived to find the family had already escaped the house with their puppy, Oscar, but their pet dog Blaze was still trapped.

Too scared to go down through the thick smoke, he was balanced with his paws on an upstairs windowsill for air.

Firefighters brought the fire under control, and led Blaze out to the safety of the street.

"I'm just glad it's over now and my kids are fine," said Miss Keighley. "I don't know what we would have done if he hadn't turned up.