A fire which broke out at a house near Chelmsford, leaving a family temporarily homeless, was apparently caused by two boys playing with a lighter.
Mother-of-three Laura Greatwood, 31, was cooking dinner at the home she shares with her three children in Sawkins Avenue, Great Baddow, when her two six-year-old sons Caylum and Jamie told her about a burning smell coming from their bedroom.
"The boys came down and said 'mummy, what's burning?' I said 'nothing's burning'," Ms Greatwood, a full-time mum, told the Chronicle.
"They said 'but there's smoke in our bedroom'."
After questioning them again, she realised that there was something seriously bad happening upstairs.
"I didn't know what was going on. I had gone out in the hallway and I could smell the smoke. I screamed at them to get out."
While her children, also including 11-year-old daughter Bethany were taken into safety by a neighbour, Ms Greatwood went back with bowls of water to attempt to fight the fire.
"I ran upstairs [to the boys' room] and all I could see was orange. It was not like a little glow. I went into the door saying 'what am I going to walk into?'"
A mattress on their bed and a cover was in flames and giving off fumes and smoke from the plastic cover.
"Adrenaline kicked in – I just wanted the fire out," the 31-year-old said.
"I managed to put the flames out. I put it out and quickly shut the bedroom door.
"I came out and collapsed because I had taken [in] quite a lot of smoke because I was taking in the [fumes from the] plastic. I got on the floor and my panic attack stepped in.
Ms Greatwood was taken to Broomfield Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. She said she could still smell the soot and smoke from the blaze more than 14 hours later.
"I'm still a bit shaky," she told the Chronicle. "I thought the whole house was going to explode because the bedroom is right above the boiler. [If] it had come down, the explosion would have been huge."
When asked if she knew what the cause was, she said: "I know it was the kids with the lighter. I had a stern talking to them to say 'don't play with fire'.
"I don't know where this lighter has come from," she added.
She said that the police, paramedics and fire crews had also spoken to her sons to warn them against the dangers.
The Red Cross came and they gave the family some clothes, and the family are staying with a friend nearby for around two weeks while the house dries out and repairs are made.
"The house smells of smoke [and is] water-logged because of the sprinkler system," she added.
The Essex County Fire and Rescue Service said that two engines from Chelmsford were sent to the incident at 8.46pm.
A spokesman said: "Crews arriving at the scene reported that the whole of the first floor was heavily smoke logged. Everyone had been accounted for by 9:05pm.
"The fire was out by 9.18pm. Firefighters then used a high pressure fan to clear the building."
The East of England Ambulance Service sent one ambulance and a Hazardous Area Response Team vehicle to the scene.
