The father of the child, Paul Fice, who was not at home at the time of the blaze, believes one of his young kids got hold of a lighter which was dropped by a visitor a few days before the incident.
Kerry Fice, who is expecting her fifth child, was at home with six-year-old Tenequa, three-year-old Levi, Roco (2) and Kolton who is one, at the time of the incident but thankfully all five managed to escape.
According to reports, Kerry was woken by a smoke alarm and tried to put out the fire but to no avail. The fire which started at 9am completely destroyed the family’s home along with damaging their neighbour’s roof.
Talking about the tragic events, Paul said: "My wife is shocked. We are trying to get on with it as best we can. I am absolutely gutted. This is the last thing I expected while at work. We cannot salvage anything from in there. We only moved in last summer, from a smaller house. I can’t even drive the car at the moment because the cam belt has gone. It has been a bad time. We do not keep matches and we keep our lighters with us at all times. One of the children picked up the lighter and started playing with it. They stood next to a bed and that caught alight.”
It took firefighters until 12:30pm to bring the fire under control and Station manager Danny Slay reiterated the importance of having a smoke alarm installed in the home, saying: ““At least the mother was alerted by a smoke alarm. It shows the benefit of having one, and just how important they are.”
The family, who are currently staying with family, lost everything in the blaze and did not have home insurance at the time.
