A 75-year-old woman has described how she raced towards a burning building to warn residents about the inferno.
Margaret Wilson, 75, of Den Walk, Buckhaven, was returning home just after midnight on Sunday with her husband Dougie, 73, when she saw a flat on the opposite side of the street was on fire.
Despite flames already leaping from the window of the flat – one of four in the block – she still woke the downstairs neighbour to alert him to the blaze.
Fire crews were called to 153 Den Walk around 12.25am.
A video posted to social media shows flames leaping from the window of the flat, which was unoccupied at the time of the blaze.
Mrs Wilson said: “We came up the road about 20 past midnight. We just got out of the car and we heard the alarm going.
“I said to my husband there’s smoke and I think there’s a fire in that house so he phone the fire brigade.
“I went over and got the downstairs neighbour, Craig, and his two dogs out.
“He had been watching TV, or had fallen asleep in front of the TV, so didn’t know about the fire.”
She added: “I think his flat is pretty badly water damaged.”
Mr Wilson described how he saw the window frames melting before the windows of the flat blew out.
He said: “The windows blew out after a while.
“The plastic frames melted – you saw them collapse and then the windows went.”
Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus spent more than an hour battling the flames with a jet hosereel.
The windows and door of the flat were boarded up following the blaze but smoke and fire damage was visible above the front door and over front and back windows of the flat in Sunday evening.
One neighbour posted on Facebook how she had been unable to return to her flat because of the water damage her home had suffered.
A video showed firefighters training a hose on the building as flames leapt from the window.
A Scottish Fire and Rescue spokesman said: “Three appliances attended after we received a call at 12.25am.
“Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus used a jet hosereel.
“The flat was unoccupied.”
