Family escapes house fire
gotten all the kids out myself.’’
She said she called out to Jason Waho and he came down and got their three children out.
‘‘The freaky thing was the cracking of the glass, you could hear the cracking of the glass just up the window,’’ Hampson said.
Waho said he had arrived home from work two hours earlier than usual, and was thankful he did. ‘‘My kids are still alive.’’ However, the memory was hard to process.
‘‘Going to sleep is a bit hard for me at the moment...seeing your son and partner sitting in bed with a fire blazing quite well next to them and [you have] a couple of seconds to make a decision [to determine if] they live or die.’’
Waho had just completed his fire warden training at work and remembered to close the doors on his way out to contain the fire.
Tokomaru deputy chief fire officer Brendon Ryan said the outcome was better than it might have been because of that.
‘‘About 50 per cent of the house suffered smoke damage but [it wasn’t more] because of the doors being closed.’’
Being a volunteer brigade, Ryan said the hardest thing for firefighters was attending fires of people they knew closely.
‘‘I grew up with those kids...you know them on a personal basis so it makes it a little bit harder.’’
Ryan said the fire was a timely reminder to families to change their smoke alarm batteries heading into daylight saving, which starts on Sunday.
Smoke alarms were installed in the house and the hallway alarm went off in the fire.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation.
Her landlord had been ‘‘amazing’’, asking if they were all alright and if anything was needed.