A QUICK-thinking workman who dragged a man to safety as flames tore through his roof was last night hailed a lifesaver.Acrid smoke was filling the bedroom where Andrew Brazier lie asleep and although alarms were sounding the father says he slept on until the workman raised the alarm and pulled him out of bed and down the stairs of his burning home in Beaumont Close, Bury St Edmunds.

A QUICK-thinking workman who dragged a man to safety as flames tore through his roof was last night hailed a lifesaver.

Acrid smoke was filling the bedroom where Andrew Brazier lie asleep and although alarms were sounding the father says he slept on until the workman raised the alarm and pulled him out of bed and down the stairs of his burning home in Beaumont Close, Bury St Edmunds.

The 40-year-old says the workman, who has not been named by the firm carrying out heating work on the Havebury Housing Association home, saved his life.

"I hadn't heard the alarms and was in quite a deep sleep. The workman saved my life really. If he hadn't dragged me to safety I dread to think what would have happened.

"I'm still shaking but I'm just glad my wife and daughter weren't in there at the time."

As firemen pulled away tiles from the roof to ensure no pockets of flames had gone undetected the shocked father, whose wife, Diane, 32, is expecting their second child in three months' time, surveyed the damage to his home which has been left uninhabitable by the fire.

The family was last night put up in bed and breakfast accommodation by Havebury and bosses will now set about rehousing Mr Brazier, his wife and their nine-year-old daughter Estelle.

The fire, which started accidentally in the loft in equipment being used by the contractors, caused structural damage to the roof and the whole structure will have to be rebuilt. Smoke and water wrecked carpets, furniture and treasured possessions in the first floor rooms.

Mrs Brazier, who married six weeks ago, said she was relieved her husband had managed to get out of the burning house safely.

However, the expectant mother said nothing from the two bedrooms or the family bathroom could be salvaged.

"We only have the clothes we are stood here in and my daughter will be particularly upset as her school violin will have been ruined and all her books," she added.

Assistant Divisional Officer Graham Crouch, who led the operation to control the flames and stop them spreading to neighbouring houses in the modern terraced row, praised the two crews from Bury which were on the scene within minutes.

ADO Crouch said: "The crews did very well to fight the fire and extinguish it as quickly as they did. Officers in breathing gear had to work very quickly in the early stages to stop the fire spreading.

"If it had been allowed to continue then the neighbouring properties would have been involved as well."

He said the roof was wrecked.

"It will need to be replaced but the fire was contained to the loft. However, there is extensive smoke and water damage to the upstairs rooms."

Mr Crouch said he was satisfied the fire, which broke out at just before 11am, had been caused accidentally.

No one from Havebury was available for comment last night.