LIGHT from the sun reflecting off a bathroom mirror set curtains on fire in a Herefordshire manor house yesterday.

A worker at the property, near Much Birch, put out the fire using a shower head but suffered smoke inhalation and was taken to hospital.

Alec Mackie, press officer for the fire service, said the worker had gone into the room after people saw smoke coming out of the window.

“Had it been left another 15 or 20 minutes, it could have been a major fire,” he said.

The worker, a man believed to be in his 40s, was given oxygen therapy by fire officers and taken to hospital by land ambulance.