On Saturday afternoon Telarah fire brigade members were on their annual lolly run in Rutherford, a suburb of Maitland in the NSW Hunter Valley, when they saw smoke billowing from the front window of a house.

Dressed in his Santa suit, firefighter Nick Carey and his team of Grant Norman, Bill Rowles and Joel Philip broke through the front door to find a shirtless man, aged about 20, unconscious in a chair in the living room.

He was dragged from the house onto the front lawn where Mr Carey and Mr Norman performed CPR,  the Newcastle Herald reported.

The small kitchen fire was quickly extinguished and by the time ambulance officers arrived the man, known to neighbours as "Wayne", was conscious.

He remained at John Hunter Hospital in a stable condition on Sunday.

Mr Norman said the Telarah fire station, also in Maitland, was usually unmanned so it was extremely lucky they were in the area.

"We all come from home if we get a fire call, so it would have taken around 10 minutes longer," Mr Norman said.

"He was unresponsive when we came across him so every second counts; it was incredibly lucky."

Rutherford resident Michael Johnson, 66, captured footage of the rescue which shows one of the firefighters carrying out CPR saying: "We're going to lose him".

"Without a doubt these guys saved this kid," Mr Johnson said.

"I want people to know what an incredible job they did and how lucky this person was that they happened to be there.

"I guess you could say Santa's come early this year."

- The Newcastle Herald