Cats alerted their owner to a blaze in a tower block.
Jim Brennan, 66, lives almost directly beneath a 10th-floor flat in Liston Road, Woodford Green, which caught fire on Saturday.
He realised something was wrong when his three cats, Piggs, Boo and Muddles, started behaving strangely.
He said: “The cats were running round acting peculiar, jumping up and down and whining. I thought, ‘What the hell is going on here?’”
Mr Brennan, a retired soldier, who has filled in for striking fire-fighters in the past, then smelt smoke and called the fire brigade immediately.
He said firefighters told him the timing of his call meant they could prevent the blaze from spreading throughout the block.
A total of 81 firefighters attended the scene at 11am and the blaze was under control by 1pm.
A man was treated in hospital for smoke inhalation.
Mr Brennan had to leave his cats in the flat when he was evacuated with other residents.
He said: “They wouldn’t let me back in to get them.
“I was worried about them once I saw the fire.
“I told them, ‘Fire brigade or not, I’m going in there if that fire starts to spread. I’ll fight my way through. I’m going up there to get my cats’.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
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