Go Fund Me page set up for Buckland couple who lost all their belongings and pet fish in fire

David Johnson and his wife Lyn had to flee their two-bedroom Buckland home in the early hours of Thursday after a blaze ripped through a bedroom next to where David, 54, was sleeping.

Lyn woke her disabled husband and helped him to a specially fitted lift in the bedroom with the couple able to bypass the burning heat in the landing upstairs before making the vertical journey downstairs to the lounge and fleeing to safety.

But the pair are unable to return to their home for at least 10 weeks and the couple’s children, Natasha and Nikki have set up a Go Fund Me page to help their parents get back on their feet after losing all their possessions in the fire.

Natasha said: ‘Everything they owned was lost, nearly 36 years of memories and all their belongings.’

The couple were treated for smoke inhalation and spent the night in Queen Alexandra Hospital after the ordeal which happened around 1.45am.

David had gone to bed but Lyn had stayed up to watch television. The 57-year-old grandmother went upstairs and was confronted by towering flames in the second bedroom.

Natasha explained: ‘It’s just lucky my mum happened to be downstairs because my dad wouldn’t have woken up as he has to take a lot of painkillers. A firefighter told us the smoke alarm didn’t go off because it melted in the heat.’

The sisters are aiming to raise £1,000 to help restore the home in Sultan Road which the family said has completed destroyed the top floor with the bottom floor covered in five inches of water which has ruined the furniture and carpets.

Natasha added: ‘My mum and dad are proud people and wouldn’t want people fussing over them, but they have always helped everyone else and I think if people want to donate they will, no one needs to feel like they have to.’

It took firefighters an hour to extinguish the fire which crew manager Christopher Norgate said ‘was caused by a faulty fish tank which had ignited causing a fire in the first floor bedroom’.

The fish died in the fire.

To donate visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/wvt97s-help?utm_source