Child warns of fire

Press, 27 December 1979, Page 4

Child warns of fire

PA Gisborne Awoken by their son, Horna, aged two, Mr Jay Delemere and his wife spent several nightmare moments racing through their blazing home at 6.30 a.m. yesterday looking for their five children. Mr Delemere suffered a cut foot when a windowexploded near him as he entered the living room. But he and his W’ife were able to get all the children safely out of their threebedroom State house. It was a bleak Boxing Day fcr the Delemer°s who had just got over the shock of a smaller fire

seven weeks ago. Firemen said the damage done was so had that the house might have to be demolished. Mrs Delemere said Horna had entered the bedrenm and awoken them. “He can’t talk properly but we could understand the word ‘fire’,” she said. “We raced to where it had started the last time, the kitchen, and when I opened the door flames leapt out. “I went into the living room. It was black with smoke in there. I got a big fright when Jaynenne, who is seven, walked out. She had been told to sleep in a tent that we had put up in

the garden but had gone to sleep in the living room.” Mrs Delemere went back to her bedroom to get her year-old son. Ley th, wh «i she could hear crying. The other children were also ushered safely from the house.

A fire brigade spokesman said the blaze had started in the kitchen and that the house was well alight when they arrived. The tent a few metres from the house was destroyed within minutes of catching alight, hut fortunatelv its occupants — guests of the Delemeres — had gone fishing earlier in the morning.