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A pet dog looking for his biscuits started a kitchen fire at a family home in south east London, it has emerged.

Leo, a Boxer/Staffordshire cross probably turned the hob on when jumping up to get a bag of biscuits left on the cooker top, his owner Jean Mosey said.

The bag was inside a child's car seat left on the hob that quickly ignited.

No-one was injured and Leo escaped unscathed, but the fire damaged a third of the ground floor at the Mosey family's three-storey home in Peckham.

Mrs Mosey, 45, and her husband Allen, 67, were out shopping with their daughter Stephanie and their granddaughter when she received a call to say the kitchen was on fire.

'Naughty thing'

"At first I thought it was a joke," Mrs Mosey said.

Her 21-year-old son, also called Allen, was unwell at the time and was asleep in an upstairs bedroom completely oblivious to the fire.

Her daughter's boyfriend was also in the house and raised the alarm when he noticed smoke rising up the stairs.

The fire happened on 3 March but investigators have only just released details, in an attempt to highlight the dangers of blazes started by animals.

Although unusual, it was not unheard of for crews to attend a fire started by family pets, London Fire Brigade said.

It has urged owners to keep animals away from naked flames and cooker controls and to ensure kitchen surfaces and cooker tops were free from flammable items.

"He's such a naughty thing, you can't put anything down in front of him without him trying to eat it," Mrs Mosey said.

"But he's still our dog and we love him. When we get our new kitchen fitted we are going to lock him out," she added.

"I leave things on top of my cooker all the time when it's not switched on. I'm not going to now after seeing this.

"If the hob was turned on accidently and nothing on top, no harm would have been done. Deffo made me think!" one reader, Lesley Dimmock commented on .