Candle starts fire in Wigan borough schoolgirl's bedroom

The youngster had been getting ready to go to bed at her home on Royal Drive in the Higher Folds area of Leigh, on the evening of Thursday January 12 and she and her mum thought that all the candles in her room had been extinguished.

But at 9pm the girl ran downstairs to tell her 39-year-old mum that a fire had broken out.

The mum went upstairs, closed the door to the room, got them both out of the house and rang 999.

Fire crews from Leigh and Atherton attended and firefighters wearing breathing apparatus doused the flames which caused damage to the bed and floorboards.

Leigh crew manager Steve Waygood said that because the mum, whose 40th birthday it is today, had done the right thing and shut the door, the fire was contained to the single room rather than allowed to wreck the whole of the upstairs.

The bedroom also suffered smoke damage, as did part of the landing.

Mr Waygood said: “The occupier did all the right things and followed fire safety advice by shutting the door. If she hadn’t, this would have been a much bigger incident.

"It looks like one of the candles that they thought they had blown out had fallen on the floor when still alight and ignited other materials.”

The mother and daughter were medically assessed by fire service trauma technicians and judged to be fine, although they were advised to go to hospital if they took a turn for the worse.