A woman died in a fire at a house in east London in the early hours of this morning.
Fire crews were called to the blaze in Exeter Road, Walthamstow, where they found a man, believed to have been the woman's husband of 30 years, suffering from smoke inhalation and back injuries.
He had leapt to safety from a first floor window, firefighters said.
He was taken to hospital by paramedics from the London Ambulance Service.
The woman, understood to have been aged in her 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene after firefighters discovered her body on the first floor.
A neighbour, who did not want to be named, told the Standard: "We heard screaming at about 2am that woke us up. At first we thought it was just people getting drunk. But then it just kept on going. We looked out the window and we saw black smoke coming out.
"[The man] jumped out but the wife...she must have got overcome by the fumes."
Firefighters from Walthamstow, Woodford and Leyton fire stations were called just after 2am and had the blaze under control within an hour.
The cause of the fire, which damaged the whole of the first floor and half of the ground floor of the property, is under investigation.
