A BRAVE 11-year-old saved her younger brother from a house blaze using lessons she had learnt from the fire brigade.

Roseanna James knew exactly what to do when she saw flames leaping up between her and three-year-old Lawrence who was in his bed.

With the bedroom filling with smoke, she followed lessons she had learned from the fire brigade's Crucial Crew safety training and smothered the fire with wet towels.

At the same time, Roseanna, of Newton Farm, Hereford, shouted to her mother in the next room to unplug the vacuum cleaner that had started the fire.

She then swept her brother up and took him to safety.

Her mum, Sarah James, was bursting with pride.

"It doesn't bear thinking about, but what she did was so brave and she did such a marvellous job that I can't tell you how proud I am."

Mrs James and her two sons had been in bed with a tummy bug and Roseanna, who attends Kingstone High School, had been doing some vacuuming when a spark flew up from the vacuum cleaner and hit her in the face.

She went to tell her mother about the spark and when she returned to the room, flames were leaping in front of her brother's cot.

"When I got back in the room just seconds later, it was burning the carpet and there was lots of smoke but I wasn't scared," said Roseanna after the fire, which happened last Friday. She had done the Crucial Crew training in June.

Sgt Pete Butcher, safety training co-ordinator at Crucial Crew, said when fire crews arrived a few minutes later, they was not much to do except make the house safe.

"This makes the whole thing worthwhile," he said.

"It's the point of Crucial Crew, to give people the skills even if we hope they never have to use them."