FIRE GUTS FAMILY HOME
Young family escapes Kelso inferno
A FAMILY has been left with just the clothes on their backs after their Kelso home was ruined by a fire.
The blaze broke out in one of the four children’s bedrooms yesterday while the fam- ily was at home watching movies. The mother poured buckets of water on the fire but had to evacuate and call firefighters. “They’ve lost everything,” the children’s grandmother said.
A YOUNG family has lost everything after a fire gutted their home in Kelso yesterday.
Condon grandmother Trish Meikle fought back tears speaking about her daughter and four grandchildren losing their possessions in the Catherine Crescent blaze.
“They’ve lost everything,” she said.
“All they’ve got is what’s on their back.”
Ms Meikle was renting out the home to her daughter, who had lived in the house for three years.
“All she’s worried about is ‘ where am I going to live mum?’,” Ms Meikle sobbed.
Kirwan Fire Station station officer Mark Graham said the family were watching movies at the time the fire started in a child’s bedroom.
“One of the young children has come from one end of the house down to mum in the lounge room and said there’s a fire in the bedroom,” Mr Graham said. Four children ranging from 10 months to eight years old were in the home at the time.
“The young fellow who alerted mum to the fire he looked about three or four,” Mr Graham said.
“Mum tried to extinguish the fire with some buckets of water, she thought she’d put the fire out but obviously she didn’t.”
The mother then evacuated her family from their burning home and called emergency services.
Mr Graham said the family were lucky to have escaped without injury.
“Had they been asleep or anything else it might have been a different story,” he said.
“QAS did assess everybody and nobody’s got any injuries.”
Mr Graham stressed the importance of monitoring children’s activities.
“During school holidays children need to be supervised, you need to know what they’re doing so they don’t hurt themselves or cause damage to anything else and make sure there are working smoke alarms in the house,” Mr Graham said.
The cause of the fire is being investigated.