Mother and daughter in hospital after house fire
NEIGHBOURS have described the terrifying moment a devastating fire broke out in their ‘close knit’ community and how a mother and her two children escaped from the blazing building.
Emergency services were called to John Levers Way in the St Thomas area of Exeter on Tuesday night at around 11.15pm, following reports of a house fire.
In the property were a mother and two children, locals say. A young girl is being treated for serious burns in hospital whilst another teenager is said to have escaped uninjured.
The mother sustained a serious leg injury and is currently being treated at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.
Fire crews remained at the scene until around midday yesterday to check for hot spots and to investigate the cause of the fire. The house has now been boarded up for safety reasons.
Local residents were still in shock yesterday and are rallying around to help support the family, who have lost everything in the fire.
Julie Whitten, 74, and her husband Ray, 78, live in the house next door and are waiting to hear if they can remain living in their home.
“I’m in shock,” said Julie. “Ray and I were just going up to bed when we heard a bang. I wondered what it was so I looked out the window and the next minute someone was banging on the door shouting to get out because there was a fire. It was our next-door neighbour’s teenage son who had escaped the fire.
“Ray is housebound so three neighbours helped me get him out. We are all good neighbours around here; it’s a close-knit neighbourhood.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like a furnace. It went up so quick. It was awful’ JULIE WHITTEN
“We took him to a neighbour’s house so he could sit in her living room because of the fumes. I sat outside with other neighbours and it was right turmoil. It’s not a sight I want to see too often.
“I have never seen anything like it. It was like a furnace. The flames were coming out like waves from the front door. It went up so quick. It was awful.
Julie went on: “Our neighbours who have lost their home had been living there for about nine years.
“It’s a housing association property. They had just had the place done up.”
Julie, who volunteers three mornings a week at a local charity shop, added: “We weren’t able to return back inside our home until about 6am. The smell of smoke was so strong upstairs that we tried to settle down and sleep downstairs but it was impossible.”
Her husband, Ray, said: “Thankfully no one was killed. I have been through this before because I worked on the trains and we had a nasty fire in Liverpool street. I don’t worry so if we have to move out then we do.”
Julie and Ray were yesterday waiting for a surveyor to come and assess the extent of the damage to their home, including to the attic roof above one of their bedrooms.