THIRTY elderly residents were led to safety from their retirement complex yesterday when a fire broke out.

Jackson Cole House, in St Thomas Street, Oxford, was evacuated at about 1pm. The road was closed while fire crews tackled the blaze. The residents were back in their rooms by 3.30pm.

Tenant John Welsby, 64, said: “The fire was contained within a flat but the corridors filled with smoke.”

Mr Welsby believed the fire started in a ground floor flat by a burning match left on a mattress.

The alarm was raised by a housing warden and no-one was injured.