Family safe after smoke alarm sounds

Photo / File

A mum and her 10-year-old son escaped a house fire when they leapt out of the window of their burning bedroom with their pet dog in Hastings early yesterday morning.

Vanessa Abraham-Smith and her son, Cullen, were sleeping in their Fitzroy Ave home when they awoke to the sound of a smoke alarm at about 4.28am, finding a room filled with smoke and flames climbing the walls.

"I thought I had left the TV on because it was quite light. We were really disorientated but then I could hear the crackling and feel the heat," she said.

The Havelock North Primary School teacher had then made a mad dash for the nearest window with Cullen and dog Chaz.

"We went for the window. The door had been cut off by the fire. He [Cullen] went out and then I threw him the dog and jumped after them," she said. "I said to him, 'Whatever you see and whatever you hear don't come back inside'."

She then went through the back door of the house to rescue her 12 year-old daughter and two other sons who were in a sleepout, before ringing the fire brigade with the phone she grabbed from the house on the way out.

She said a pillow that had fallen on to an extension cord during the night had caused the blaze after it caught fire.

"I thought I had turned my electric blanket off but in fact I had it on one," she said. "If we had been overcome with smoke no one would have got out."

The family praised Hastings firefighters who extinguished the fire quickly resulting in most of the damage being confined to the bedroom.

She said the smoke alarm in the hallway had saved their lives.

"We were very lucky. The smoke alarm in the hall is hardwired and has been there the whole 15 years I've lived in the house. It saved our lives. Two more minutes and we were gone."

The two were treated by ambulance staff for smoke inhalation but were not taken to hospital. The family will spend the next few nights at a motel while they clean up and process their insurance claim.