A mum is urging other families to have an escape plan and to practice it regularly, after a fire in her home earlier this year.

The fire started in the early hours of March 1 when the immersion heater in the airing cupboard developed a fault and caught fire. The family all managed to escape safely.

Cheryl Woodgate, who lived at Brewers Field, Wilmington, until the terrifying fire, took her children to meet the Dartford firefighters who attended their house fire, in the hope it would help her two children – aged three and six – who were still affected by the incident.

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The firefighters talked to the children about what happened that night, the family were given a tour around the fire station and one of the fire engines that was used to tackle the blaze.

Ms Woodgate has now recorded a safety video for Kent Fire and Rescue Service urging others to put measures in place in case the same thing happens to them.

In the video, she says: “We are living proof of this and this is what people need to realise, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have an escape route, fire alarms, anything – we would not be here.

“It did happen, it can happen, it can happen to anyone, anytime, any place.”

Ms Woodgate and her partner Tyrone Howe were in bed when the heater in their bedroom burst into flames in the early hours.

Smoke filled their bedroom, and they immediately grabbed their children and fled to safety.

The room filled with so much heat, it blew the windows out of their frames.

Speaking at the time, Ms Woodgate, 37, said: “I woke up before the alarm went off, I don’t know why. I saw the smoke coming out of the boiler cupboard and told Tyrone.

“We shut the door tight and went straight to the box room at the back of the house, where the children are.

“I said to them ‘We’re going to practice what to do if there’s a fire, like in school’, and just then the smoke alarm went off.

“They were scared and crying, and saying ‘There’s a fire mummy, there’s a fire’, but we managed to get them dressed and get them out.

“It was so hot. Then the window exploded, glass shattered over the floor. It was terrifying, I’ve never been so scared.”

• For more information about family safety call 0800 923 7000