The shared kitchen in a students flat caught fire in the early hours of Tuesday morning, leaving students “worried and scared” for their safety.

The fire began in a shared kitchen in Sharman Court at 12.15am Tuesday, and was dealt with by 2.45am. 

Peixu Du, 23 who lives in the flat, waited outside of the building for three hours, and he couldn’t fall asleep until after 4am because his room smelled of smoke. 

He said: “I thought the fire alarm would only last a few minutes and then stop, but it just kept going off and on.

“I walked out and saw everyone downstairs looking up. There was very heavy white smoke coming out, and then it turned to black smoke.

“I was worried and scared. From the outside of the flat, you can see that the inside of the burning building was very dark,” Mr Du said.

Katherine Yao, 22, a student at the University of Sheffield who lives in another block said: “I was sleeping and had no idea what’s going on.

“I guessed it was something burning in my room, but after checking all the appliances and finding that everything was fine. I realised that the smell was from someone else’s room.

“I was a bit angry at first, when I was woken up by the fire alarm ringing, then I started to worry that the fire would spread to my room.

“The building reeked of smoke. It’s so pungent that I thought I was going to be poisoned.”

Greg Mattocks-Evans, from South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said: “It was caused accidentally. Fortunately, no one was injured. 

“The exact cause has been hard to determine but was most likely caused either by an extractor fan or airfryer.”

He also added: “Always keep an eye on your cooking and never leave it unattended, turn appliances/cooker off when you’ve gone to bed and if you come home after a night out, get a takeaway rather than try and cook anything.”