A man accidentally set fire to his flat after a romantic gesture he had planned to accompany his proposal to his girlfriend went wrong.

Three fire engines were sent to the home above a newsagents in Sheffield on Monday night.

The man had intended to pop the question to his partner in a room “filled with hundreds of tea lights”, balloons and a bottle of wine, according to South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue.

But he apparently left the candles burning while he went “round the corner” to pick her up from work, only to return to find his flat engulfed in flames.

He and his girlfriend managed to escape the blaze unharmed – before he instead asked for her hand in marriage outside his smouldering flat.

The fire service described the chain of events in a series of tweets, adding: “As a bonus, she said YES!

The owner of AM News, who gave his name only as Mully, told The Sheffield Star: “There were like 20 candles. When he came back there was a blaze.