Fire leaves St Albans home badly damaged

FLAMES tore through a house after an electrical fire broke out in a cupboard yesterday (Monday) afternoon. The blaze started underneath the stairs of the property in High Oaks, New Greens, at around 1.20pm, when the woman occupant was upstairs cleaning an

FLAMES tore through a house after an electrical fire broke out in a cupboard yesterday (Monday) afternoon.

The blaze started underneath the stairs of the property in High Oaks, New Greens, at around 1.20pm, when the woman occupant was upstairs cleaning and her young granddaughter downstairs in the lounge.

On discovering the fire, she quickly evacuated the property with the child before calling the fire brigade.

Two crews from St Albans fire station arrived to find the house well alight and smoke billowing out from the upstairs windows.

Crew commander Steve Langford said: "The lady was upstairs doing some cleaning with her granddaughter downstairs and she noticed that the music from MTV had stopped, so she thought that her Sky box had just tripped out. "But 10 minutes later she realised that smoke was coming out from underneath the stairs and that there was too much fire for her to do anything about, so she grabbed the child and left the property."

Four firefighters wearing breathing apparatus entered the property through the front door and discovered that the fire was electrical, so dry powder was used to put out the flames.

The fire was out within 20 minutes and firefighters remained on the scene for around one hour.

Crew commander Langford said that the stairs had collapsed in the blaze and the ground floor of the property was severely damaged by fire, with the upstairs also sustaining smoke damage.

He said there was not thought to be a working smoke alarm in the property, which would have alerted the woman to the fire much sooner.

For a free home fire safety check call 01727 818919.