Manchester Evening News.Just after midnight, residents of Rutland Road in Tyldesley saw the blaze beginning and rushed over to alert the elderly man to the blaze.The group then helped to get him out of the house through the front door as flames leapt up one wall.
The fire is believed to have started outside the man's home, said the victim's son, melting wheelie bins before burning down his shed and fence.
The blaze then began to spread up the side wall of the home - burning cladding, breaking a window and scorching a large tree in the man's front garden.
Residents tried to extinguish the fire with their garden hoses before three fire engines arrived, which spent around an hour fighting the flames.
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