A badly burned man desperately on one of his neighbours’ doors to raise the alarm after his home caught fire.

Forty-three-year-old Mike Reagen, raced to a ran to a nearby house in Lenside Drive, Downswood, at 3.30am last Thursday.

It had started in the ground floor of his property, but spread quickly through the semi-detached home. Four fire engines tackled it at its height.

Neighbour Ken Hassett, 59, said: “I felt really sorry for him. He was burned; his hands were in a really bad state and his hair had just gone. He was in a bad way. It was horrible.”

Mr Hassett said Mr Reagen had moved to Maidstone into the drive from London with his parents some years ago, but had lived alone since they had both died.

Fire crews wearing breathing apparatus used compressed air foam and a ventilation fan to fight the flames and clear the smoke.

Mr Reagen was taken by ambulance to King’s College Hospital in London.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.