Devastating: Family return from night out to find home destroyed

It will be at least a year before Nicky Clark, her two teenage children, and husband Stuart Owen, can return to the house in Freer Drive, Burntwood.

On the night that the fire struck, her children 14-year-old Archie and 16-year-old Daisy were at their father's house.

Mrs Clark and husband Mr Owen were at a friend's party at the Premier Suite in Cannock.

Mrs Clark, a 49-year-old NHS worker, said: "I got a call around quarter to 11 from a neighbour saying 'come home your house is on fire'.

"No-one was in and they had a key so they went in and got our two dogs and two cats out. It was just smoke at that time.

"At that point I didn't really think it was going to be that bad. Maybe we hadn't put the toaster off or something like that, I thought.

"We started to come back home and we were just around the corner when I got another call saying 'be prepared, your roof has just gone',

"By the time we got to the social club by Gregory Road we could see the smoke and the flames.

"We arrived and all the fire engines were there. We got out of the car and one of the neighbours come and grabbed me into their house. I don't think they wanted me to see it.

"By that time the roof had collapsed. The top of the house was completely missing.

"I just couldn't believe what was happening."

Since the fire on June 12 the family has been staying at a hotel and are waiting to be temporarily re-housed in the next week while insurers assess the true scale of the damage.

It will be at least a year before they could think about moving back in, but Mrs Clark admitted that she would like to live somewhere else permanently.

"I wish it was like a car and it could just be written-off but it doesn't work like that with houses," she said.

"We are waiting to be re-housed but it won't be on the same road. I am glad really because I wouldn't want to drive past it every day.

"It is just devastating. It wasn't just the fire damage it is the water saturation as well.

"Archie is worried about ever going back and has asked if it could happen again.

"I was paranoid about safety before myself but I am even more paranoid now.

"You see this type of thing on Coronation Street but you don't think it will be your own house.

"People need to be really aware about safety. It is hard to believe the fire was caused by a spotlight.

"It's not like I left the kettle or the straighteners on or something like you hear about.

"It was obviously going to happen at some point. It might have ignited while we were still there."

The family hope their insurance policy will cover most of the costs but in the meantime Mrs Clark's ex-husband James Clark has set up a temporary relief fund online to see the family through the next few weeks.

People have already donated nearly £2,000.

Mrs Clark added: "It's ironic really. We do a lot of charity work ourselves and every year we go and help the homeless.

"We never thought we would be homeless ourselves.

"We are not used to accepting charity and we haven't asked for it ourselves. But people have been really kind and generous.

"Everyone just keeps asking 'what can we do?' and I say we were just lucky we were not in the house ourselves so it's fine."

Visit https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/james-clark-1 to donate money to the family.