Fumes killed father and five children as farmhouse fire hit 1,085C

A FATHER and his five young children died from deadly fumes after a mystery fire broke out at their farmhouse home, an inquest has heard.

Dave Cuthbertson, 68, died in the blaze alongside children Just Raine, 11, Reef Raine, 10, Misty Raine, nine, Patch Raine, six, and Gypsy Grey Raine, four, after flames engulfed their property while they slept.

An inquest into their deaths heard investigators have so far failed to find out what caused the fire due to the damage to the farmhouse at Poityn Farm in Llangammarch Wells, Powys.

Leaf Raine, Mr Cuthbertson’s 13-year-old daughter, managed to escape the blaze on October 29 last year after being woken up by smoke filling her room and hearing her father’s shouts for her and her siblings to flee.

She climbed through a skylight window and was joined by siblings Blue, 12, and Farr, 11, who raised the alarm with a neighbour around midnight, but emergency services were unable to rescue her other siblings or father.

The one-day hearing, at Welshpool Town Hall, was told DyfedPowys Police are still investigating the cause of the blaze due to the level of damage to the building after it collapsed.

Detective Inspector Adam Ellis said a “number of enquiries” were still to be made and could not rule out the possibility of foul play.

“We have kept an open mind in terms of the causation of the fire,” he said. “We’ve been very mindful of the fact there could have been foul play during our investigation.”

A fire investigator told the inquest copper pipes on a radiator had melted, meaning the temperature inside the farmhouse during the blaze would have exceeded 1,085 degrees.