Ingleside house fire: Three small children and their parents flee late blaze
Quick thinking parents were able to save their three little children after a massive fire took hold of their house on the northern beaches.
Manly
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A young family had a lucky escape from serious injury after a devastating late night house fire on the northern beaches.
Three children aged three, five and seven, and their parents had to flee the home at Ingleside on Wednesday night after a fire took hold in the loungeroom.
Much of the two-storey house in Cicada Glen Rd was destroyed.
Firefighters from the Rural Fire Service and NSW Fire and Rescue along with two ambulances and four police cars were called to the scene after the fire started in a chimney flue about 9.30pm.
The homeowner told police officers that they lit a fire in the fireplace in the lounge room before the mother noticed the flames coming from behind the fireplace.
She said the chimney flue had caught on fire and she could see flames between the small gap separating the brick wall and the fireplace.
“She called her husband who then rushed outside the house and to check the chimney while
the woman ran upstairs to get their children to safety,” a Northern Beaches Police spokesman said.
“The chimney flue was well alight with flames visible. It soon became clear that the fire was
spreading upstairs through the airconditioning ducts.
“Once the children were safe, the father contacted emergency services while his wife, armed
with the garden hose was on the roof top trying to hose down the chimney flue from a safe
distance.
“Realising the fire was getting out of control and they couldn’t contain it, they both
fled to a safe distance and emergency services were soon on scene.”
When police arrived they saw heavy smoke billowing from the upper floor of the house as volunteer RFS firefighters from the Ingleside brigade, in breathing apparatus, fought the fire from inside the house while help coming from the RFS Terrey Hills & HQ Brigades, and Fire and Rescue brigades from Mona Vale and Narrabeen.
The mother, 37, was taken by ambulance to Northern Beaches Hospital to be treated for minor smoke inhalation. She was discharged early this morning.
The whole upper floor of the house suffered significant fire damage. The ground floor
was moderately damaged by fire and water. The exterior body of the house is still intact.
Emergency services estimated the damage bill as well in excess of $500,000.
Police said the fireplace had been serviced two days earlier by a technician.
Investigators from NSW Fire and Rescue are examining the cause of the blaze.