A Wembley family escaped in seconds as fire destroyed their home, in a blaze they believe was started by a stray firework landing on the roof.
The fire broke out on 1 November at the family’s home in Wembley, during Diwali celebrations. Zoya Sheikh, 25, said: “It was something that none of us expected. I was downstairs in the living room with all my family.”
“I was helping him at the front [of the house] and someone shouted ‘there’s a fire.’ The family had just seconds to escape before flames engulfed the house. “We had five seconds to go and grab my family, then it just continued to burn,” Ms Sheikh said. “Thank God I got to my family and we were all out of the house.”
“It was horrible – we built our lives there, we’ve all been there since we were kids – all our memories are in there,” she said. “If we hadn’t left within five seconds, everything would’ve collapsed on us.”
London Fire Brigade said around 40 firefighters and six engines attended the scene.
Ms Sheikh believes a stray firework may have started the blaze and has urged the public to be more cautious during celebrations. But she stressed the cause has not been officially confirmed: “We don’t know officially if it was a firework, nothing has been confirmed. It could be a short circuit, it could be a firework – nothing has been assessed yet.”
“If it is the case [that it was fireworks], people should be mindful and not point them at someone’s house,” she said.
The fire came at the end of a weekend in which the London Fire Brigade took hundreds of calls. Crews answered 832 calls on Bonfire Night itself, and a one-year-old girl was taken to hospital after fireworks were thrown at a shop in Leyton. The baby was hurt during celebrations in east London.
