A FIRE chief is leading a campaign for a standardised smoke alarm sound after the death of a 99-year-old woman in Bacup.

Samantha Williams woke twice in the night to hear an alarm going off at the home of her elderly neighbour Ivy Crawshaw, in Mill Street, last May, Burnley Coroner’s Court was told.

But she thought it was a mobile phone alarm and only checked on Mrs Crawshaw the following day while walking her dogs, an inquest heard.

Police were alerted when neighbours, who often ran errands for her, could not open her front door.

The pensioner was found upstairs in the doorway of her bedroom and the house was thick with smoke, the court heard.

An investigation found that a one-bar electric fire had been left on and set bedding alight, which had slowly filled the property with smoke.

A post-mortem examination found she had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Watch manager Aiden Fortune, who led the investigation, said: “The neighbour has heard a beep and thought it was a mobile phone or clock alarm.”

He said the Lancashire brigade was now campaigning for a ‘universal’ smoke alarm alert, to prevent future similar deaths.

The inquest heard that the only heating in Mrs Crawshaw’s home was a gas fire downstairs and a one-bar fire in the bedroom.

Her nephew Roy Salisbury added: “The neighbour who lived at the back can be forgiven for thinking she had heard a mobile or another kind of alarm.”

Recording an accidental death verdict, East Lancashire coroner Richard Taylor said the one-bar fire may have been left on for some time, before the bedding caught fire.