FIREFIGHTERS have warned Dorset residents to check their fire alarms after a young student suffered smoke inhalation in a flat blaze.

Ahmed Ali Al Beinein, 18, left cooking on in the early hours of Wednesday morning before falling asleep in his Hinton Road flat.

He had turned off his smoke alarm because the bleeping noise warning of a low battery had annoyed him.

Fortunately, his next-door neighbour was disturbed by a communal alarm, and woke up in time to call the emergency services.

Ahmed, who is originally from Libya and has been a student in Bournemouth for around five months, said: “I put my food down and went to my room to go on Facebook.

“It was an accident but there was a lot of smoke from the cooking.”

He was treated for the effects of smoke inhalation by paramedics following the small fire in the third-floor property.

“My neighbour was knocking on the door,” he said.

“They [the firefighters] told me to put a new battery in before they left.”

Three crews from Westbourne, Springbourne and Redhill attended at around 3am, and used one hose reel jet and two sets of breathing apparatus to tackle the fire.

A thermal imaging camera was also used.

A spokesperson for the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service said: “The damage was severe by smoke to 50 per cent of the flat, and a pan of food was completely destroyed.

“The occupant of the flat was only alerted to the fire when a neighbour heard the communal alarm go off because he had turned his alarm off due to the bleeping because the battery was getting low on the alarm.”