GUESTS fled from the Moat House blaze wearing just their nightclothes.

They were led through Bolton town centre by police officers wrapped in duvets and blankets to protect them from the cold.

One eyewitness, Rosa Lorens, 44, left the Chicago Rock Cafe at around 1.20am today and spotted the flashing blue lights of police cars and fire engines outside the hotel.

She added: "We then saw a group of people walking down the road towards us, some with duvets and blankets wrapped around them, others were just in their 'nighties'.

"They said there had been a fire and the third floor had been taken out completely."

Mrs Lorens, from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, was staying with a group of eight people at the New Pack Horse Hotel and spoke to some of the evacuated guests later at the bar.

She said: "They seemed really quiet, quite shaken. You could smell the smoke very strongly on them. I was speaking to a man who was staying in the room next door but one to where the fire started. Most of them spent the night sleeping on the lounge floor."

Mrs Lorens, a training consultant for Coca-Cola, said she normally stayed at the Moat House when visiting Bolton but a colleague had chosen the New Pack Horse this time by choice.

She added: "I feel very lucky. I only found out this morning that two people had died. It's the last place you'd expect it to happen."