Mother loses family home as overnight blaze sweeps property

A mother and her two children fled their family property after a fire broke out in the early hours between Thursday night and Friday morning, leaving the household with almost nothing.

She said she was asleep when she heard voices shouting "Fire! Fire!" She jumped from bed and ran outside barefoot to find her car ablaze. Another vehicle at the front of the property was also on fire. The blaze, she said, began at the front and later reached the rear of the premises.

She went back inside in the dark for a phone that was charging, then tried to gather what she could for herself and her children — a 13-year-old son and a 17-year-old daughter. She described the daughter as very small, with intellectual disability, dwarfism, cataracts in both eyes, diabetes and other illnesses that leave her sight limited.

In the rush she carried out two fans, a drawer of belongings, tinned food including sausage, and several bags of clothes. Three phones and about four tablets belonging to her daughter were among items she had placed in a drawer but could not fully save as the flames advanced and she told everyone to run.

"Honestly, my mind went blank," she said of the moment. "All I can remember saying was Jesus. Jesus. And that was it." Both children, she added, cried heavily.

She had planned to do laundry that morning and had stocked the house and car with bulk groceries and household goods — including soap, jasmine rice, oil, cheese, soup, cream, tissue, snacks and crackers — while not working. She also pointed to blocks, steel and cement she had bought, along with a truckload of sand and a truckload of gravel she feared she would not recover from suppliers in Runaway, saying she had intended to expand and improve the building so relatives could eventually have their own apartments.

The property is shared by an extended family. She said her father has a dozen children, and that kin on and off the island are returning to devastation. A sister who lives at the back of the premises cried bitterly, she heard, while a niece also visited the scene. Receiving emergency supplies afterwards felt overwhelming, she said, because she had nothing left but the dress she was wearing.

She still cries, she said, but is trying to stay steady. "We are a very strong family," she said. "And we keep it. We do cooperate."