Proposal gone wrong: UK man's explosive marriage proposal causes apartment fire

A man accidentally set fire to his apartment after a marriage proposal he had planned for his girlfriend went wrong on August 3 in the English city of Sheffield.

According to the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue, the man had intended to ask the question to his girlfriend in a room “filled with hundreds of tea lights” and balloons.

But he apparently left the candles burning as he “went around the corner” to pick his girlfriend up from work, only to return and find his apartment on fire.

He and his girlfriend escaped the fire unhurt before asking for her hand in marriage outside his burning apartment.

The fire department described the chain of events in a series of tweets and added: “As a bonus, they said yes!”

The fire department also tweeted that the incident highlighted an “important lesson”.

“As romantic as they are and as much as we all love them, candles can be so dangerous. Please, please, extinguish them properly when you've done. Don't put them near flammable items, like curtains. Don't leave hundreds of tea lights unattended,” the post read.

Social media users were quick to react to the incident.

Tweep @KatusKate posted: “Think he was extremely lucky it did not ignite the gas system and blow up the whole block.”