A SLEEPING man had to be rescued from a burning Worcester flat by his wife during the dramatic blaze which struck a chip shop in Worcester’s London Road .

The couple living directly above Seacrest Fish Bar said they were lucky to have got out safely.

Costas Mougis, aged 32, was fast asleep and had to be awoken by his desperate wife while smoke poured in. As your Worcester News reported yesterday, the fire, which started at 5.50pm on Tuesday, wrecked the chippy below and closed London Road for two hours.

Mr Mougis said: “I was asleep because I was ill and my wife, thankfully, came home from work half-an-hour early and said, ‘Get out, we are on fire’. So we grabbed our stuff and got outside as quickly as we could. We were pretty sharpish and consider ourselves quite lucky. “We’re packing up all our belongings because we’re going to stay somewhere else until it’s sorted.”

Two passers-by yesterday said they were responsible for rescuing a cat and iguana from the second flat above the chip shop.

Kiya Bramdrick, aged 24, a chef, and friend Lyn Benney were walking past when they saw the fire. Kiya said: “We saw smoke and ran up there to help before we thought of anything else.”

Fire crews, who closed London Road for almost two hours while they dealt with the blaze, believe it started in the extraction system in the chip shop’s kitchen.

The owners of the Seacrest were unavailable for comment yesterday.