A tumble dryer burst into flames after an engineer had supposedly fixed it.

A national safety recall was announced last November, covering millions of the machines sold under the Hotpoint, Indesit and Creda brands.

At the time, the company announced it would send out workers to homes across the country to modify the dryers and make them safe.

However, Darren Marchington, of Scrapsgate, Minster, said his unit burst into flames around eight weeks after a Hotpoint engineer had visited.

The 49-year-old said: “Mine was one of the units which required an upgrade. This was done within three months, but the unit failed to operate two weeks later.

“Hotpoint then sent another qualified engineer to repair the unit again.

“All in all, we had the machine for about a year and three months and never had a problem with it. Yet soon after the engineer supposedly fixed it, it caught fire.”

Mr Marchington said his wife Jenien put the tumble dryer on at about 9am on October 9 and 40 minutes later there was an “almighty bang”.

The structural engineer said: “My wife came out screaming there was a fire so I ran indoors from the front garden. My house was full of big black smoke and flames were coming out the back of the unit.”

He managed to pull the plug out of the wall and move the tumble dryer outside before the fire swept through his house.

He said: “It was just so hot. The plug had even melted in the socket.

“I stood on the cable hard to pull the plug out of the wall and I kicked the dryer outside.”

Mr Marchington’s wife, seven-year-old son and two grandchildren had been playing in the front garden shortly before the blaze.

“If I wasn’t there and the fire spread, it could have been really serious,” he said.

“I just can’t understand how this could happen. We did everything asked of us by Hotpoint and yet we had a fire after the machine was fixed.”

Mr Marchington said Hotpoint was waiting for the fire report before it does anything about the incident.

“My family could have been killed, but there has been no great concern about this,” he said.

A Hotpoint spokesman said: “The safety of consumers is our number one priority and we thoroughly investigate all incidents as soon as they are reported to us.

“However, you will appreciate, we are unable to comment on individual cases.”