A DEVASTATED mum and her four daughters watched in horror a fire ripped through their home after a tumble dryer burst into flames.
Emma Pickering’s family have now been left homeless following the devastating blaze in Harlow, Essex, on Sunday.
Emma, her boyfriend and four daughters thankfully escaped unharmed, but the family is in desperate need of support.
Living with an ovarian tumour, relying on food banks for her children’s meals and having to cope without home insurance, Emma now has to rebuild her family’s lives.
At around 3pm on Sunday, a fire broke out in the tumble dryer and quickly spread through the house.
Only just having enough time to escape, Emma and her family watched as flames destroyed much of the downstairs.
Emma, 45, was left staring at the blaze, unable to comprehend what was happening.
She said: “I was in bed asleep because I’m not well. Three of my daughters were upstairs, my boyfriend was in the lounge watching football and my other daughter was dancing around the kitchen.
“Alexandra shouted that she could smell burning. With that I was out of bed and down the stairs, as were my daughters.
“As we went towards the tumble dryer we could see the top part where the electrics are and there was thick, black smoke pouring out of the front.
“I pulled the water drawer out and with that all the flames came up. Charlotte, my eldest, got the rest of the girls out of the house and called the fire brigade.
“As I got to the front door flames were bursting out of the utility window, and as I got to the other side of the road where everyone was, the windows exploded out.
“I was beside myself shaking, by then all of the neighbours had come out and they’d taken the little ones inside because I didn’t want them to be traumatised any more.
“I was shaking holding onto my eldest and we were both sobbing. We were staring at the flames and it was just unbelievable, it was all a bit surreal. You know what’s happening but you can’t comprehend it.
“I haven’t got any house insurance because it lapsed on October 11, and all I could think about was ‘what am I going to do?’
“All the rooms are smoke damaged but if the fire brigade hadn’t got here when they did and doused everything with water, then the whole house would have gone up.”
Firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze before it reached the upstairs of the house.
Their quick response to the fire saved Emma from losing the entirety of her home.
Emma lives with her boyfriend, Jamie, and her four girls, Charlotte, 18, Francesca, 12, Alexandra, 10, and Georgiana, 8.
With the house now completely uninhabitable, the family is currently staying with a friend, Julie, in a two-bedroom house in Old Harlow.
The last few years have been tough for Emma. Two years ago she discovered she had an ovarian tumour.
Although it’s currently benign, Emma needs a major operation to remove it. But events in the past 18 months have put everything on hold.
In July last year, Emma developed peritonitis after her appendix burst, and she almost lost her life, and because of her condition, Emma hasn’t been allowed to work.
She’s been living on benefits and has sometimes struggled to find enough money to feed her children.
“Because of being on an employment and support allowance and money being low I haven’t been able to pay for things like my house and life insurance,” she said.
“We don’t even have enough money to eat some weeks, I’ve been having to rely on the food bank just to be able to feed the kids so it’s been really hard.”
Emma is now waiting to find out the full extent of the damage before she can think about sorting out the repairs.
And with no home and with many of the family’s belongings lost to the fire, Emma is now relying on the kindness of friends, family and even strangers to build her life back up.
Dawn Pell Mason, one of Emma’s closet friends, has set up a crowdfunding page to try to raise money for the family.
The JustGiving site is aiming to raise £20,000 to go towards repair work for the family home in Albert Gardens, Harlow.
More than £1,600 has been raised so far.
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Dawn said: “It brings back your faith in the community. It’s really heartening, it makes you want to cry when you look at all the messages.
“It’s very emotional and heartwarming to see all these people helping Emma.
“If everyone did a little bit for everybody in local areas and communities then the world would be a much nicer place.”
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/mum-and-four-daughters-left-homeless-after-tumble-dryer-fire-destroys-family-home/
News Pictures Mum and four daughters left homeless after tumble dryer fire destroys family home
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Hayden Panettiere
Size: 8
Age: 18
Height: 5ft 1in
Weight: 8st
To achieve her kick-ass figure, Hayden – who plays cheerleader Claire Bennet in Heroes – follows the ‘quartering’ rule. She eats only a quarter of the food on her plate, then waits 20 minutes before deciding whether she needs to eat again.
Hayden says: “I don’t have a model’s body, but I’m not one of those crazy girls who thinks that they’re fat. I’m OK with what I have.”
Nicollette says: “I don’t like diets – I see it, I eat it! I believe in eating healthily with lots of protein, vegetables and carbs to give you energy.”
kim cattrall
Size: 10-12
Age: 52
Height: 5ft 8in
Weight: 9st 4lb
SATC star Kim swears by gym sessions with Russian kettle bells (traditional cast-iron weights) and the South Beach Diet to give her the body she wants. To avoid overeating, Kim has a radical diet trick – squirting lemon juice on her leftovers – so she won’t carry on picking.
Kim says: “I am no super-thin Hollywood actress. I am built for men who like women to look like women.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/NINTCHDBPICT000449058220.jpg?strip=all&w=720
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