Update: Couple speak of lucky escape from electrical blaze

The electrical cupboard where the fire broke out in Simon and Dawn Dainty's house in Downing Close, Ipswich. (Image: Archant)

Simon and Dawn Dainty of Downing Close in Ipswich have praised the fire service’s quick response, which stopped an electrical fire in a first floor cupboard from potentially destroying their home.

Golf coach Simon, 31, of the Lee Westwood Golf School said: “We were sat down in the lounge and we heard a trip switch go and I came up and found the socket of the heating controls on fire.

“We were worried, having had an aerial booster catch fire and devastate a previous house.”

As soon as they discovered the fire, the couple left their house and called 999.

Simon said: “They were round really quickly.

“It’d spread into the inside of the wall cavity, where the boiler was and it’d gone all up into the airing cupboard.

“It was right next to the gas boiler, which was a bit worrying.”

Dawn, 33, an administrator at ABC Preschool in Stratford St Mary, said they were lucky it was the Easter holidays or they might both have been out when the fire started.

“It’s lucky we were here, or God knows what would have happened,” she said. “The fire service were really good.”

Fortunately, the couple’s son Leo, 9, was staying with his grandparents last night.

Two crews from Princes Street were mobilised to the fire in Downing Close at about 8am today.

“The fire service was here in under ten minutes,” Simon said. “Two trucks came and they were super organised. They got it under control.

“We’d opened the windows and the smoke was just flying out.

“Our neighbours were really good, they took us in and made us a cup of tea.

“The electrician came round and sorted it out so we could turn the electricity back on without it exploding.”

The couple were halfway through renovating the house and had just replaced the carpets upstairs.

The blaze was extinguished by 8.40am.