A Jewish family provided refuge to more than a dozen people forced to flee when a fire engulfed a block of flats.

Samuel Schneck and his family were woken in the early hours the morning after Yom Kippur to find a neighbouring building in their street in Stamford Hill ablaze, with fire fighters at the scene.

Mr Schneck, 38, a father of six, said: “It was 3:30am and we heard a loud noise outside. We looked out and saw the fire in the flats, in Hawthorne House, across the road. It had started on the ground floor and the flames were reaching up to the next floor. It was quite frightening. The fire brigade were evacuating people.”

The family live in nearby Rubner House, on Grovelands Road, a building run by the Agudas Israel Housing Association, which shares a car park with residents of Hawthorne House.

Mr Schneck said: “We see the people that live there every day and the same faces were all evacuating the building. There were young mothers with  babies and old ladies.

"All of them were in their nightclothes. I felt very sorry for them standing out in the cold. It was no place for them to be.”

He and his wife opened up their three-bedroom home to provide shelter for the residents.

“We had over a dozen people in the flat in total. We gave them blankets, warm drinks and snacks,” he said.

“Later on we found out we had four generations of one family,” he said.

Neighbours showed their appreciation to the family the next day by buying them flowers and chocolates to say thank you.

“We even got a kosher bottle of wine,” Mr Schneck said.

“It was very generous, we were not expecting it. They spent a lot of money and they didn’t need to.

“We are a community and we look after each other. We would have done it anyway. We will always open our doors to anyone who need it.”

The London Fire Brigade said it believed the fire was caused by a cigarette being thrown into a timber vegetable box, placed outside the window of a ground-floor flat.

A LFB spokesperson issued a reminder about safely disposing of cigarettes.

He said: "If you're a smoker it’s absolutely vital you ensure your cigarette is completely out when you’ve finished smoking it.

"If you don’t, you risk causing a fire which could not only destroy your home, but also cost you your life."