INVESTIGATIONS were continuing today into a suspicious fire in an Ipswich ground floor flat.A Suffolk fire service spokesman said a smoke alarm is believed to have saved the life of the person living upstairs in the property on the corner of Spring Road and Woodbridge Road just before midnight on Saturday.

INVESTIGATIONS were continuing today into a suspicious fire in an Ipswich ground floor flat.

A Suffolk fire service spokesman said a smoke alarm is believed to have saved the life of the person living upstairs in the property on the corner of Spring Road and Woodbridge Road just before midnight on Saturday.

It is not known if the upstairs resident alerted the emergency services but when fire crews arrived at 11.47pm they found the ground floor well alight.

No residents were at the property yesterday or today but a fire investigating officer and police specialists carried out a detailed search to find what caused the blaze.

All the downstairs windows were boarded up and the outside walls streaked with black from the smoke.

Chunks of broken glass, which look like the remains of an ashtray or flower vase, lay on the pavement. The glass may not have any connection with the fire-damaged property.

An acrid smell still lingers all around and in the back yard a badly burnt divan bed and mattress bear testament to the severity of the blaze.

Fire investigating officer David Atkinson arrived at the scene yesterday morning to began sifting through the remains in the property with police.

Although as yet they do not know the circumstances of the fire's origin, they were treating it as potentially suspicious until they find evidence to say otherwise.

FIO Atkinson, said: "All we know at the moment is that the fire started downstairs and we believe someone upstairs escaped because of a smoke alarm.

"Our job is to establish what caused the blaze and a report will be made. It will depend on what we discover to see whether any further action will be taken," he said.

East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust said they were not called to the incident.

But a spokesman for the fire service said: "Fortunately a man escaped the building and no one was hurt."