A 30-year-old father from Accrington will never forget the horrifying phone call he received while away on a fishing trip in June. Matthew Watkinson says his family have lost everything and feel “completely robbed” following a terrifying house fire at their home in Huncoat.
The young dad was out of town when he received a phone call from his partner telling him that their living room had gone up in flames as she slept on the sofa and their kids were playing upstairs. The house, on Walter Street in the centre of the village, set on fire after an extension lead in the living room was found to have too much electricity running through it, causing it to explode.
Matthew told Lancashire Live that since the blaze, his family have been left with “nothing” as everything they have worked for for ten years was destroyed.
“I had gone away for a fishing trip and my kids were upstairs playing and my partner decided to have a sleep on the sofa in the living room,” he said.
“Suddenly she woke up to flames and a massive explosion, luckily she woke up, grabbed the kids and the dogs and ran out.
“We had been in the house for six months and had spent about four grand doing it up. I feel completely robbed.”
Although everyone in the house left uninjured, the family had to spend several nights in hospital to ensure the children were fine, and they have since been left traumatised.
The house, which was not fitted with fire alarms, was later sold and the family were forced to move after initially being put up in a hotel and later, his partner’s sister’s house.
Impact on the Family
Matthew, previously of Chorley, added: “My six-year-old son is autistic and he’s not coped well with it. “He’s said to me that he doesn’t know how he didn’t die in the fire and when a fire alarm went off the other day the kids hid under a quilt thinking it was going to happen again.”
He continued: “My partner doesn’t like me going to work because she doesn’t want to be home alone and she’s struggling to sleep at night.
All she sees when she closes her eyes is flames, she can’t stop thinking about it. If we had fire alarms it would have been detected before it got to that point, none of it really makes sense to me.”
Matthew and his family have since set up a GoFundMe page for donations to help them get their life back on track.