A man who fled a fire in his bungalow has told how he discovered his hallway in flames.

Fire crews were called to tackle the blaze at Warren Bell’s home on Queen Street, Peel, on Friday night.

A fire quickly took hold within the electrical box in the entrance hallway of the local authority house and this, in turn, began to spread to the roof space above.

Partially-sighted Warren, aged 53, was in the shower when the fire broke out.

He said: ’I had just jumped in the shower and then all of a sudden it went black and the shower shut off. I thought "bloody hell what’s going on?".

’I thought the switch must have tripped and went to the front door where the fusebox is and the whole hallway was in flames. It was terrifying.

’I threw some clothes on and got out. Someone in the street rang 999. I can’t remember exactly what time this was as I was panicked.’

Firefighters were called to the scene at 10.30pm and were there for about 90 minutes. After they extinguished the fire, they vented the smoke-logged property, damped down and checked for hotspots.

Warren was put up in the vicarage for a couple of nights and is now in Westlands until the repairs to his bungalow are carried out.

He said: ’It could have been worse. I could have been asleep.’

He said the fire service could not get right up the street because of the parking.

The road is two-way but is only really the width of a single-track lane.

’It’s only a small road and there are big vans and pick up trucks parked up on one side,’ he said.

’They are all people who live in the area. The binmen struggle to get up the street half the time. They need to put parking restrictions on the street. It should have been done years ago.’

But deputy chief fire officer John Murtagh told the Independent an issue of problem parking on Queen Street had not been flagged up to the emergency services.

He said the fire appliance got as far as it could and this did not impede the firefighters in any way.

Mr Murtagh pointed out that fire engines don’t need to pull up right outside a property to deal with a fire as they can use extended hoses - and appliances can’t get down every lane even where there is no issue with parking.

But he said during the incident on Queen Street, the appliance made ’reasonable progress to near the property’ - and there was no need to use an extended hose.