“Embarrassing! This should not be allowed to happen,” Tomas Carlsén at Bergslagen’s rescue services BRT told local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda.

The fire began in the kitchen of a family home after a forgotten candle set light to a table and then the walls and ceiling. Fire services were called at around 2pm on Sunday afternoon.

Fire fighters put the fire out and followed established routines to check the house for any further signs of glowing embers, with the help of thermal detection equipment.

But despite the use of the technology, BRT was called back to the property at 3.45am on Monday morning after a new fire alarm had sounded. When fire fighters arrived on the scene the house had burned to the ground and they were left pondering the cost of their oversight.

“We shall conduct our own inquiry and of course look over our routines,” Carlsén told Nerikes Allehanda.

The property-owner was not in the house at the time of the second fire as he spent the night in Lindesberg hospital after sustaining smoke injuries to his lungs having rushed into the burning kitchen to save his cat.