A MUM who was saved from a fire after her Labrador woke her up called the dog a “little treasure” and told how she was close to jumping from a first floor window to escape the smoke.

Ellen Trille made a desperate call to firefighters from her High Wycombe flat last Sunday morning after being woken by her pet dog, which is called Sunday.

The 54-year-old lives alone in the flat on Hicks Farm Rise and had been trapped in a bedroom before being rescued by a fire crew through a window.

She told the Bucks Free Press: “If she (Sunday) hadn't have growled when she did I'd have just laid there and gone back to sleep.

“I couldn't get downstairs and the smoke just started billowing through the door. I've never been so scared in my whole life.”

“I've been staying with the dog. I don't really want to be apart from her after what's happened, I'll be with her for life now...She's a little treasure. “ It is believed the fire was started by a scented candle, which the accounts clerk had left burning as she went to sleep.

Flames and thick smoke had engulfed the living room on the ground floor of the flat in Tamar House by the time she was awoken at 2.50am.

Mrs Trille opened the windows of her bedroom, which is upstairs, and put a duvet at the bottom of the door to try to stop the smoke getting in.

The mum-of-one then called 999 and considered jumping from the first floor window during the agonising minutes before fire crews arrived.

She described the smoke as “like toxic sweat sticking to your face”.

There is serious smoke damage to the whole ground floor of the flat, while many of her possessions have been destroyed, including treasured photographs of her 21-year-old son as a child.

The Micklefield home had no smoke alarm and firefighters, who were able to help Mrs Trille out of the window, said she was “very lucky” to survive.

Mrs Trille, who was treated for smoke inhalation, added: “The firefighters were lovely and very reassuring. When you come down the ladder and he's holding you it makes you feel so safe.

“I was so lucky and I'm pleased it didn't affect anyone else's house. I've been silly with the candle, they've all been thrown out now.”

Mrs Trille has had Sunday since she was born 18 months ago. The pair are staying with friends, while a massive clean-up job on the flat begun this week.

Though Mrs Trille did not have contents insurance she has building insurance to cover much of the damage.