JIAXING - A dramatic rescue of two women who were falling from a building on fire has gone viral in China.

Firefighters, responding to a blaze at the top floor of a six-storey residential building in Zhejiang province, managed to save both women as they attempted to escape from their burning home.

Video footage taken by eyewitnesses showed a woman dangling out of a sixth-storey window before falling.

A firefighter stationed at the window of the floor below manages to grab her legs and pull her in.

Moments later, a second woman is seen climbing out of the same sixth-storey window and also falls, but disaster was averted when firefighters repeated the same rescue act from the window below.

According to local media reports, the 29-year-old daughter of the family living in the home told police that an electrical blanket had overheated and caught fire.

Her father was sleeping on the couch in the living room while she and her mother were in different rooms. The father had also climbed out of the window and was rescued by firefighters.

The mother suffered burns on her right arm and was taken to hospital, but the other two were unhurt.

A total of nine fire engines and 43 firefighters responded to the incident.

On the dramatic rescue of the mother, firefighter Jiang Tiancai said: "We just got her feet when she began to fall, and it was scary.

"I wouldn't be able to sleep in the future if I had failed to catch her."