A firefighter carried out mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a dog after saving him from a blaze.

Crews called to the fire in a flat in Tyssen Street, Dalston, at 8.47am on Tuesday (June 11) at first thought a person might be inside after a neighbour reported banging against the door.

But when temporary sub-officer Lewis Keeble and a colleague forced open the door, they saw it was actually a dog trying to escape.

Kiko, an Alsatian, had been alone in the fourth floor flat when the fire broke out. When fire crews reached him, he was in a bad way.

Sub-officer Keeble said: "By now Kiko was really limp because of the amount of smoke that he had inhaled. I reached out and dragged him out of the flat and across the building to a balcony. 

"It didn't look like the dog was breathing properly so I cupped my hands around Kiko's mouth and began blowing directly into his mouth and after a few minutes, he thankfully came round.

“He even appeared to be back to normal and he was later left safely in the care of his owner.”

Crews from Islington, Stoke Newington and Homerton fire stations worked at the scene for more than an hour, extinguishing the blaze just after 10am.

The fire is being treated as accidental and is believed to have been caused by a fault with an electric hob.

Sub-officer Keeble added: "I was anxious at first seeing the state that Kiko was initially in.

“But as a lover of dogs, I'm really pleased that I possibly saved his life and it's a really enjoyable outcome."