A SEVEN-year-old boy hid in a cupboard after setting fire to curtains while playing with a cigarette lighter.

Abdul Rahmaan’s mother suffered minor burns to her hands in her efforts to put the fire out.

Firefighters said the family had a ‘lucky escape’ from their home in Corporation Street, Accrington, yesterday afternoon.

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Noreen Akhtar, 43, said her son was found hiding in a wardrobe after he realised what he had done.

The mother-of-five said: “I was downstairs with two of my other sons in the kitchen and Abdul was upstairs playing.

“He had lifted a lighter and set fire to some artificial flowers. He ran into the bathroom to put water on them but he must have caught the curtains.

“We heard the alarm and when I ran upstairs, the room was pitch black. I grabbed some wet towels from the bathroom and put them over the fire to stop it.”

The fire, which was put out before the crews could arrive, caused minor smoke damage to Abdul’s bedroom and destroyed the curtains.

Mrs Akhtar, a full-time mum who looks after Abdul and his brothers; Ismail Hussain, 18, Shohib Hussain, 17, Mohammed Faiz, 15 and Abdul Wahab, 10, said she had only bought the lighter earlier in the day.

She said: “We are having a kitchen extension so the cooker was not working as normal. I will be more careful now about leaving things around the house.

“I had a word with Abdul and it won’t be happening again. It could have been a lot worse.”

Mrs Akhtar, whose husband, Mazhar Hussain, a butcher, who was not at home, was treated at the scene by paramedics for the burns on both hands and fingers.

Two crews from Hyndburn station and one from Blackburn were called at around 2.45pm yesterday.