he pet tabby cat of an Australian family of four saved the household from a house fire by alerting and clawing at the owner's face. Alert Timmy the tabby made the move by rousing his unidentified owner when a mattress suddenly caught fire as the family slept.

"The cat was probably the best smoke alarm system ... it was clawing at the occupant's face and got him up and out of bed," Cairns fire service spokesman Robert White-Macfarlane told media.

"There were alarms throughout the house but the smoke saturation hadn't reached a point where they'd activated the alarms in the adjacent room," White-MacFarlane said.

Woken up, the man then alerted his family and called for help.

White-Macfarlane said the fire was probably from a cigarette. The home had not sustained major damage because of the cat's warning.