Family left picking up the pieces as fire destroys home
Jack Symons was cleaning inside his parents’ thatched cottage, in Tamarisk Way, East Preston, when there was a power cut on Sunday evening (January 19).
Unbeknown to Jack, a fire was raging on his home’s thatched rooftop.
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Hide AdIt was only when keen-eyed security guards Sean Wilson, 27, and Peter Stringer, 48, of Worthing-based Assured Security Guarding Ltd, who had been on a routine patrol of the area, banged on his front door, that Jack realised about the impending danger and evacuated.
Minutes later, the £1.3m house was in flames, with firefighters from across the county battling to extinguish the inferno.
Speaking exclusively to the Gazette, Jack, 26, said: “I’m so thankful for the guards’ warning. I’m not saying I could have died, necessarily, but the possibility was there.
“I had no idea the house was on fire. No smoke alarms went off. I did not know.”
For Jack’s dramatic full story, see tomorrow’s Littlehampton Gazette (Thursday, January 23).