A couple escaped with their lives when their mobile home went up in flames today.

The shocked pair were taken to hospital after breathing in smoke but escaped serious injury.

The electrical fire broke out at Willowbrook Park, off Old Salts Farm Road, Lancing, at about 7.30am.

Heat from the raging flames cracked glass in nearby properties and neighbours said they feared for their own homes.

One, who declined to be named, said: "The flames were leaping out about 30ft in the air but because of the wind they were billowing virtually horizontally. The smoke was incredible."

"I could smell smoke this morning but when I realised there was nothing wrong in my home I forgot about it.

"But then it came down all misty and I thought it was a sea fog until a neighbour phoned to say there was a big cloud of smoke behind me."

Station Officer Terry Beck, of Shoreham fire station, said the couple would have died but for their smoke alarm.

He believed a television could have caught fire in the mobile home.