A woman has revealed how her partner rescued a four-year-old boy after his parents were killed in a house fire in Blackpool.
The boy’s mother and father died in the fire early Wednesday morning and two of the children remain in hospital, with the youngest, a boy, in “very poor condition,” police said.
Lancashire Police and Fire Service are investigating the cause of the fire on Peter Street.
Kara Marie Pearson said her partner, Jake Hartill, used a baseball bat to smash the glass on their front door as flames engulfed their home, saving their 4-year-old girl.
The couple, who live in the neighbourhood on Terrace Street, about half a mile from Blackpool Tower, were woken by the blaze at about 2.30am.
“If he was [Hartill] If I hadn’t let him out, he would have died. I heard this huge explosion and I looked out my bedroom window and the whole downstairs was literally in flames. I couldn’t see anything. It was bright orange. It just looked like an explosion. All I could hear was the dad screaming, “Help! Help! Help!”
“Myself and my partner ran down and first he smashed the window in the door with a bat. A little boy was behind it when he smashed it. He picked the boy up and got him out but his father was still screaming upstairs. The boy was standing there when he smashed the window. He had to lift him out of the fire. His skin was red hot and burnt.”
“As soon as we got the boy to safety all the windows broke and blew out. Flames started coming out so quickly we all had to step back. It was like a wildfire, I can’t describe what the fire was like.”
Police said firefighters and officers were called to the scene at 2:39 a.m. Wednesday after reports of a fire and people inside.
The children’s mother was found dead and their father was later pronounced dead at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
Detectives said they were “open-minded” about what led to the incident. No arrests have been made.
