A father has suffered charred feet after desperately racing upstairs to save his children from their burning Spotswood home in the middle of the night.

The fire started in an air-conditioning unit about 3am and when firefighters arrived, the top floor of the Hudsons Road home was well alight with flames lurching from the roof.

Three children – aged four, seven and eight – were rescued from the flames by their 45-year-old father.

“They were very lucky. The mother heard sounds, went upstairs to investigate and found it fully alight. She screamed to her husband and with his assistance, they were able to get the kids down,” Metropolitan Fire Brigade officer Rod O’Sullivan told the TODAY Show this morning.

“Extremely lucky that everyone got out before we had a fatality.”

It took 20 firefighters under half an hour to bring the blaze under control. It is thought to have caused around $100,000 damage to the two-storey home.

Mr O’Sullivan said the smoke alarms may not have been working, prompting a reminder to everyone to check their own alarms.