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A mother trapped inside a burning Riccarton Road home said she was forced to throw her young daughter over broken glass and flames to escape after a Molotov cocktail was allegedly hurled through the front door.
Fire and Emergency shift manager Lynn Crossan told Chris Lynch Media crews were called to the Upper Riccarton blaze at 5.55am on Friday.
Crews from Ilam and Wigram stations attended. When the first fire appliance arrived, the house was well ablaze.
The fire was extinguished by 6.15am.
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Eight people, including a pregnant woman, and a dog were inside the Christchurch property when the fire broke out early on Friday morning. All escaped safely.
The woman, who Chris Lynch Media has agreed not to name, said the fire spread from the front door to the lounge in less than a minute, trapping her and her daughter in a room beside the entrance.
“I had to get her out through the same front door that the Molotov was chucked into because there was less fire in that exit,” she said.
She said her screams woke the rest of the household, who fled through the back door while her oldest son helped his partner escape from the upper level.
Chris Lynch Media
“I picked up my daughter and threw her over the broken glass and flames outside the front door,” she said.
She said she knew opening the door would feed oxygen to the flames but had no other way out.
Another occupant tried to fight the fire as the family escaped, but she said the blaze reached the second storey within about two minutes.
The woman believed the fire was a targeted attack, alleging it followed an earlier dispute involving a member of the household.
She said threats were made against the household in the weeks before the fire.
“This is really not fair on the kids or the dog because they deserve better than this. They watched their home go up in flames and that is sad to watch as a mother because they’ve lost everything except each other over a drug deal gone wrong” the mother said.
A police spokeswoman told chrislynchmedia.com “the exact cause of this fire is currently being investigated; however, police can confirm that the fire is being treated as suspicious.”
