Mother and daughter saved from blaze by neighbours on Barnsbury estate

Published: 18 June 2010
by PETER GRUNER

A MOTHER paid tribute this week to the neighbours and firefighters whose quick action meant that she and two children did not perish in a burning flat.

Caroline Smith, 32, her two-year-old daughter Tiyana, and a young family friend were fast asleep when fire broke out in their flat on the Barnsbury estate in the early hours of Saturday. 

They did not wake up despite the fire alarm blaring and their dog barking.

So next door neighbour Melissa Crouch sent her partner, youth worker Clem Oxford, to investigate the first floor flat off Copenhagen Street.

Mr Oxford, 32, peered through the kitchen window at about 2am and saw the kitchen ablaze.  

The fire brigade were called as Mr Oxford tried to rouse Caroline and the children and force open the door. 

The family were only rescued when firefighters battled the heavy smoke to pull them from their beds.

Caroline said: “I’d had very little sleep lately and somehow managed to sleep through the smoke alarm, dog barking and Clem banging on the door.

“I want to say a big thank you to my neighbours and the firefighters. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be here.”   

Mr Oxford said: “I got in at 2am and Melissa said she’d heard the bleeping sound. I saw the whole kitchen on fire. I couldn’t break down the door or contact Caroline inside. 

“The firemen came within minutes. They said had they got there five or 10 minutes later, everyone inside would have been dead.” 

The London Fire Brigade is investigating the cause of the fire but it is thought to have ­broken out when a cooker hob was accidentally left turned on.