A Mullingar mother and daughter were left in a distraught state and severely shocked, on Tuesday morning of this week, 4 September, while very fortunate at escaping uninjured, after the family car in which they had just been travelling went on fire as it was being parked at the front door of their home.
The woman, Gillian McAllister, Ardleigh Vale, with her teenage daughter Avril, a student at Loreto College, Mullingar, had just left other younger family members to school, shortly after 9am on Tuesday morning, when they became aware as the woman stopped the car outside her front door, that something was wrong, with smoke coming from the vehicle,
The driver became alarmed and immediately got out of the car as did her daughter and went into the house to raise the alarm. It was fortunate that they did so, and closed the front door, as the O9 silver C4 Citreon they had just left quickly caught fire and the flames from the burning vehicle outside their home at Ardleigh Vale, Mullingar reached the overhead front door porch of the residence. The porch structure caught fire and the blaze began to threaten the house itself.
Within the space of ten or fifteen minutes, neighbours reckoned, the front door and overhead external areas of the house had been damaged, with the main front window of the house, the front door surrounds and a top window also affected by the blazing car and the extreme heat.
Their next door neighbour Deirdre Farrell and other neighbours went to the assistance of Gillian McAllister and her daughter, and managed to get them out from the property through the neighbour’s garden. The mother and daughter were understandably, very badly shaken and shocked by the sudden emergency situation, and by the explosions as their stricken car was totally destroyed in the fire.
When two units of Mullingar Fire Brigade arrived, they quickly brought the fire under control and stopped the blaze from spreading into the building itself, extinguishing burning areas on the front.
The burning car was extinguished within a short time, but the vehicle was totally destroyed.
All that Gillian and Avril had with them in the family car was lost in Tuesday morning’s fire, including the woman’s purse with driving licence and all that it contained, and Avril’s packed schoolbag and books. Other special equipment for one of the younger children was also lost in the burned-out car, we understand.
A sizeable amount of damage was caused to the front of the family residence, apart from the porch, with the front door badly burned and part of the main front window also affected by the fire, as well as an upstairs window.
When Westmeath Topic went to the scene of the sudden fire shortly after 10am on Tuesday and spoke with those present as the Fire Brigade was completing its work, the shocked woman told us that between 9 and 9.30pm just after she had returned with Avril from bringing her other children to school, the fire occurred in the car. She and her daughter got out of the vehicle quickly and she went in to summon help and Mullingar Fire brigade was called.
Gillian’s father, Jim Kane, told Topic that he was driving in the Carrick on Shannon area on Tuesday morning when he was told about the fire, and rushed back to the town. “I’m very thankful that no one was injured,” he said. “Both Gillian and Avril are shocked, but once no one was hurt thats the main thing. The other smaller children don’t even know at this stage that there was a fire in the car,” he said.
