EXCLUSIVE

by Joe Walker

joewalker@thekmgroup.co.uk

A mischievous toddler sent his kitchen up in flames after putting a Bob the Builder car in the microwave.

Cheeky two-year-old Harry Turner started the blaze after nuking the plastic toy while his mum Kym was hanging out the washing.

The frantic 24-year-old was alerted by the fire alarm and grabbed the youngster and his baby sister Rubie before racing out the front door.

A neighbour dialled 999 and firefighters were quickly on the scene in Canterbury Road, Herne Bay, dousing the flames before they spread upstairs.

Kym said: “Harry came to the back door mumbling something and I heard the fire alarm going off.

“I could see the microwave was on fire so ran outside with him and Rubie and knocked next door. The fire brigade were here in five minutes, but it felt like hours.”

Harry’s dad Dave Turner, 26, received a call from Kym and raced home from Dover, where he works for National Express.

The dad-of-four, whose other two children were at school, said: “Kym told me the house was on fire so I just jumped in the car and went. When I got back it was chaos.

“Everything was black downstairs; the walls, the carpets, the cupboards, everything.

“The firemen found the toy car in the microwave. Harry had managed to reach up to the kitchen side, put it in and press start. It would have only been on for one minute.

“He knew he had done wrong. When I got home I asked him what had happened and he just started crying.”

The damage caused by the fire wasn’t covered by insurance, so the couple have spent days re-decorating the house since the blaze.

Dave said: “Anyone who hasn’t got contents insurance should get it. For £12 a month we could have saved ourselves a lot of grief.

“We’ve hardly slept a wink since the fire and have been working non-stop trying to get things back to normal.

“But the main thing is that nobody was hurt. It could have been a completely different story.

“We’ve got a new microwave now but have made sure it’s always unplugged at the mains.”