Joanne Rees, a mother-of-two and taxi firm worker from Clase, Swansea had spent the afternoon packing for her first ever holiday with her family on a sunny day on Monday, April 25, this year. Putting new summer clothes in a suitcase for her herself, her husband and two young children, Thomas Rees and Cadi-Lynn Rees, she was getting excited for a trip to Newquay and the chance to get away from it all for a week.
The windows and doors of her home were open to let in a breeze and her children played in their separate bedrooms upstairs. Sadly, Joanne was blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was about to strike. At around 5pm, when the 35-year-old mother was downstairs, her eight-year-old daughter ran into the kitchen looking distressed and shouted something straight out of a mother's worst nightmare: "Thomas has set his bedroom on fire."
When Joanne ran upstairs to find her little boy, the four-year-old was stood frozen in shock staring at his blanket which was engulfed in flames. Grabbing her son and daughter and running out of the house, Joanne got her kids outside and called 999. Joanne's four-year-old chocolate labrador was still inside and she needed to get back in and save him from the already spreading fire. You can get more Swansea news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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In a panic, the mother-of-two frantically began to knock on the doors of houses in her street, trying to find someone to watch her children for her. No-one answered and she grew desperate. Eventually she spotted a stranger who was walking down the road. She shouted to the woman to please watch her children as her house was on fire as she sprinted indoors and rescued her beloved pup from the kitchen.
With everyone safely out of their semi-detached home, Joanne called her husband Gareth who had left for work as an engineer and told him the awful news. "We're all safe, don't drive like crazy but the house is on fire. Properly on fire," Joanne told him. Their next door neighbour came out and ran into the house to try and shut some doors upstairs but he could not even get past the first few steps of the staircase as the fire had spread so rapidly with the doors and windows all open.
All Joanne and her children could do was watch from their neighbour's front garden as their house went up in flames. "The smoke was billowing out of the window and all the upstairs windows were cracked or smashed. Everything was black and the windows were melted," Joanne said.
It turned out that her son Thomas had picked up a firelighter without his mother realising and had set his blanket in his bedroom alight. Joanne said it was their fault for leaving it out for him to find but he had never shown any interest in lighters or fires before.
The fire brigade arrived and tried to put out the blaze that had spread so quickly across the upstairs of the Rees's family home and managed to stop it before it spread next door or downstairs. Once the fire was put out, the family were asked to wait while the house cooled down before going in to assess the damage. The firefighters told Joanne and Gareth that they normally did not get the children out of these types of fires. "We were so lucky. If it was later we could have been asleep" said Joanne.- You can read more stories about Swansea here.
Fire damage had devastated the upstairs but the downstairs had also been flooded due to the water used to stop the fire. "There was nothing we could save," said Joanne, adding: "I filled a carrier bag of stuff, that was it. It was their bedrooms that broke me the most, all their stuff was ruined. I think I was quite naïve, I thought some of the toys could at least be saved but even the hard toys were melted."
"I've managed to save a baby blanket each for them and just washed and washed them to get the smell of smoke out. Even now you can smell the smoke on them," Joanne said. The rooms upstairs, including the family's bedrooms, had all been devastated by the fire and the only clothes they had to their name were in the suitcase full of holiday clothes downstairs.
Joanne said some of the more difficult things to find ruined were her sentimental items like the handmade wooden letters of her children's names which she had made for them and hung on the wall. The wooden letters which spelt Cadi-Lynn and Thomas each had personalised designs, unicorns for her daughter and Spiderman for her son, they were all ruined. In her bedroom, the glass frame of Joanne's wedding certificate which hung on the wall had melted from the fire.
That night the family stayed in Joanne's father-in-law's house in Bridgend and the next morning the couple took their children to school to regain a small sense of normality. They had to stop at a local supermarket first to buy the children new school uniforms and, to make matters worse, a fire drill went off in the supermarket, further traumatising the family. The teachers at Clase Primary sent Thomas and Cadi-Lynn home with a bag of new uniforms.
Since that awful day, the family have been living in temporary accommodation from the council and Joanne said people had rallied around her and her family. She explained that due to missing payments for their home insurance, the house was not covered when the fire broke out but that the ordeal had taught her how to ask for help.
"The community have been amazing. They've bought toys for the children. They've been so grateful." The local community raised £600 to help with the initial costs, but Joanne said it had been a struggle financially since the fire. "It's all the little things you don't think of. Something crops up everyday." After seven months, the family just got the keys back to their home last week and a gofundme has been set up to help them start over.
The Rees family are now slowly rebuilding their lives and re-decorating their house. They never got to go on their family holiday and are still saving to repair the damage to the property. Her little boy Thomas said: "It's nice to be home," but he sleeps with his sister in a double bed every night because both children are too scared to go upstairs alone since the fire.
When Thomas and his dad were out shopping, Thomas said: "Dad, I'm really sorry I burnt the house down." Joanne said he knew he should never play with lighters again but she did not want him to feel guilty as he was only a child and did not know any better. She has slept on the sofa every night since April and although the couple were donated a bed frame they are still saving for a mattress. "We're just grateful to be home for Christmas," she said.
Joanne's advice to other families is: "Get insurance and never take for granted that children are not interested in lighters. It just takes one curious moment and your whole life is upside down!"
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