Young couple and baby escape fire
5:46pm Monday 5th May 2008
A young family's smoke alarm saved their flat when a cooker caught fire in their absence.
Natalie Riches and Steve Connolly had taken baby Katie-Jane out for lunch when they were called by a neighbour, saying firemen had broken into the two bedroom flat.
Miss Riches, 20, said she thought the friend must be joking, but quickly realised they had had a lucky escape.
She thinks Katie-Jane, who is 14 months, fiddled with the electric cooker knob before they went out, which led to a basket of clothes on the hob catching fire.
They usually turn the cooker off at the main switch, but forgot, she said.
The flat in White Horse Avenue, Halstead, is owned by Greenfields Community Housing and Miss Riches said she had warned the association about having a kitchen diner with a baby.
**for full story see this week's Halstead Gazette