Wrexham mum leads her seven children to safety

Neighbours alerted 43-year-old Barbara Jones to the blaze, which is believed to have started in one of the seven bedrooms of the house in Western Circle, Caia Park, which has been specially adapted to accommodate her 10 children.

The property consists of two semi-detached council houses knocked into one.
The drama began to unfold just before 8am yesterday.

Barbara said: “The smoke alarm went off and at the same time my neighbours came and told me they could see fire through the window of one of the front bedrooms.

“I knew I had to get everyone out quickly.

“We didn’t panic because although we couldn’t get to one of the staircases because of all the smoke, we knew if we went right through the house to the other side we could use the one at the other side.”

Barbara then led out her children Arlene, 20, Lee, 14, Kiara, 12, Joshua, 10, Lilly, seven, Ellie May, five, and Jessica, four.

Two older children and the baby, 14-month-old Isabella, were staying elsewhere so were not in the house at the time.

She added: “There was still a lot of smoke but we all got out safely.

“After I’d made sure everyone was out of the house we all got together outside. It was terrible and very traumatic for us all but the main thing is nobody was hurt.

“It looks like we’ve lost everything – furniture and clothing. I know the kids had left a lot of clothes on their beds because we had just got back from holiday.

“I don’t know what we will do now because the house looks too badly damaged for us to go back there, so I am waiting to speak to the council about it. The house can be rebuilt but the main thing is that all my kids are safe.”

Paul Whybro, county safety manager for North Wales Fire Service, said: “The occupants were woken by the smoke detector and made their escape from the house.

“The cause of the fire is under investigation.”

A spokesman for Wrexham Council said: “We are aware of the incident and officers are in contact with Ms  Jones