3 girls die in a housefire

[handlemecarefully]

My heart goes out to their poor mother - her life is totally and utterly destroyed now. How can she ever recover?

I'm also so frustrated though - if people bought and maintained smoke alarms, and took a few precautions like shutting all the internal doors before they go to sleep (doors hold back flames for an estimated 20 mins)so much tragedy could be avoided.

Not sure if this is the case in this scenario though since apparently it was a true inferno with temperatures exceeding 1000 degrees, and the poor children died from their injuries rather than smoke inhalation. I wonder what caused such an intense fire....its frightening

Rest in peace sweet angels...and compassion and love to their broken mother

[CnR]

I could hardly listen to this story and just don't know how this poor mother can now live the rest of her life.

On the local news the police did reiterate the need for smoke alarms and to have a fire action plan of how to get out. They are also investigating the causes - one possibility was a gas leak I think.

[CnR]

This is the BBC link

[M2T]

OH GOD! I didn't see this today! How horrifying, and I KNOW I just couldn't go on.

Perhaps had 1 of the children survived... but all of them!

[mieow]

My heart goes to the mother, can't read about it without my eyes welling up
Rest in peace little angels..

[doormat]

very sad story
my heart goes out to the mum and the familiy.

[EMJ]

My heart goes out to this mother.
About the smoke alarms that CnR mentioned, I filled in a form to have free smoke alarms fitted, live in a council house and was on benefit at the time. The local fire brigade were trying to make sure everyone had them. Needless to say, nearly three years on I would still be waiting for them if I hadn't fitted them myself. What would the firebrigade said about that if it was my house that was on fire?
Probably nothing.

[wobblyknicks]

Read the BBC page - didn't quite get it! The mother was in the house and got out, right? So why didn't she try and save the kids before she got out??? I'm not for a minute trying to blame the mum, I'm sure she did everything she could and I really feel for her, I'm just wondering what details I've missed.

[Clarinet60]

I think the heat was too intense wobblynicks. Adults often escape when kids don't. She may have been able to get out of her bedroom window, but have been unable to climb back up to their bedrooms. It's something that bothers me a lot about separate rooms, because it would be very hard to climb up the wall to their room, and you probably wouldn't be able to break the window anyway. A terrible thing for the poor mother.

[CnR]

Please get a smoke alarm even if you have to pay. I think they are only £5 now for places like B&Q and are battery operated. Certainly better than being without.

[wilbur]

Oh, this is so awful, I can't bear to think of that Mum's feelings. Apart from smoke alarms (new building regs insist they are wired into the mains now, which is good), they also say to make a specific plan with the people you live with. If there's a fire, we've agreed that dh will find a way out and keep it fire free as far as poss while I get ds and dd (when kids are older we will make another plan). That's because if we couldn't get to our front door, we would have to escape across neighbouring flat terrace and break down one of their doors/windows to get out (neighbours have given us permission to do this!).

[CnR]

I am afraid our action plan is not very easier regardless. We live on the fifth floor so it is either get down the stairs quick, or go onto the big shared terrace and wait for help.

Our new apartment has battery operated smoke alarms within them, but mains ones in all the shared areas like corridors.

[Slinky]

I'm a bit obsessive with the smoke alarms - just did a quick count and we have 11 in our house . They are checked EVERY Sunday and under no circumstances are batteries to be removed. Every single door downstairs is shut tight and I NEVER leave the dishwasher/washing machine running overnight. (apparently these items are listed as one of the main causes of household fires).

Our escape route is fairly straightforward as our/DD1/DD2 bedrooms all have ledges below that we can all climb onto.

All our windows have locks (with keys left in) and I've just started to leave 1 key in DD1s window (she's 8 now so past the stage of climbing out!). I've told her under no circumstances to play around with the window and that we plan to use her room as the main escape route if a fire breaks out.

My neighbour is a Firefighter, so I got him round one day to advise me on best places for alarms to be fitted.

[CnR]

I must try and get into a routine of checking ours more frequently, especially now they are battery ones.

[Angeliz]

Slinky you really made me think there. we recently moved (well a year ago andd there are tonnes of windows.(one lock does all). Anyway, there aren't enough keys so we move them about and never have any in the upstairs windows as dd is 2.6 and they don't have safety locks on. I have just had discussion with dp about your post and we are going to get keys cut tomorrow and have a place for a key in every room! I never even thought of that aspect! Thankyou

[Slinky]

Awww, you're welcome Angeliz

I'm so obsessed with smoke alarms that when I visit other people's houses, I find myself looking around at their ceilings to see if they have them fitted

Going back to the OP, I can't for one minute imagine what the mother must be going through but my biggest fear is my children being trapped in a house fire and me being unable to get to them

[Clarinet60]

I didn't know that about dishwashers etc, Slinky. I'll stop putting ours on late at night, as I sometimes do.

[popsycal]

slinky - i didnt know abour dishwaskers etc....
and just done a count and check on smoke alarms....
am off to b&Q later for batteries and more alarms,,,,,