The four cats who died in the fire of Waxham

A WOMAN has told of the trauma of crawling through her burning council flat trying to save her cats from a fire. Heather Lennox said she is still having flashbacks and nightmares about the blaze on December 15 which killed four cats.

Two cats survived after she went into the flat at Waxham in Mansfield Road on a rescue attempt.

She said: “I just started screaming. The reality of a fire is that all the fire safety you could be taught just goes out the window. You’re not standing there thinking ‘should I go in or not?’ It’s ‘the people I love are in there. Of course I am going in’.”

She had come back from the shops to find black smoke billowing out of her home of 28 years. Ms Lennox said: “I crawled to the front of the living room and opened the window to give the cats a chance to escape onto the balcony below. I knew this would spread the fire more, but it was better to take a chance.”

Heather Lennox with Mr Blades, who survived the blaze

She was able to grab Mr Blades and Minerva and took them to a neighbour – and then returned to the flat in search of the others: Jupiter, Mercury, Fairbairn and Lady Sykes. Before she could get them to safety, there was a big explosion and she watched a fireball jump out of her window.

“My heart just about broke in two,” she said. “I thought ‘they’re gone’. These are my constant companions. My life is centred on my cats. They’re my family.”

Ms Lennox added: “They were the people I was going to spend Christmas with. I had Christmas trees done up for them, ­little handmade stockings and presents with their names on. They were my raison d’etre.

“They are my psychological support and are what keeps me together.”

She was taken to the Royal Free Hospital for smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning where she waited for 13 hours and then spent three days there. Her phone was burnt in the fire so she was not able to tell her family what had happened.

“I was coughing up black soot for three days. I have this stabbing pain in my chest, which means if I lie down it hurts,” she said. “I’m very traumatised. I’ve not slept properly for a month. I had PTSD before this started, now it’s compounded.”

The London Fire Brigade said it believed the fire was caused by items on a hob igniting when a hotplate was accidentally turned on. But Ms Lennox wonders whether the fire was started by an electrical fault.

She said the day before the fire her computer kept turning on and off, and that when the fire started she had been out buying a plugboard to test whether it was the computer or the power source at fault.

“The electrics were supposed to be tested in Waxham by 2021, but I never had anyone coming in to test mine,” she said.

The most recent fire risk assessment for Waxham, published in May last year, states that mains electrical installations were last inspected in 2020.  Since leaving hospital Ms Lennox has spent the past month in four Premier Inn hotels.

Inside Ms Lennox’s wrecked home in Gospel Oak

The council is paying for this accommodation because her flat is wrecked, but it means she is being moved around the different branches of the hotel chain at short notice.

“There’s no kitchen. There’s no washing facilities either. No micro­wave,” Ms Lennox said. “At the moment I’m just ringing my clothes out and in the sink,” she added.

She went back to the burned-out flat to salvage her cats’ bodies and her belongings on New Year’s Eve.

“It was horrendous. Everything that made my house a cosy little place was melted into a ball and two of my cats were dead in plastic bags on the bed,” Ms Lennox said.

Minerva survived the fire

On January 6 she was alerted by a neighbour that workmen were emptying her flat, even though there were still two more cats and salvageable belongings inside. She recovered her final two cats who have now been cremated.

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “We have been able to offer Ms Lennox a move to a void property in her building and our Repairs team are working hard to bring that property up to the standard that we expect for our tenants as soon as possible.

“In the meantime, we are continuing to provide temporary accommodation for Ms Lennox and support with the cost of moving. “To access the windows some items needed to briefly moved from the property. An inventory of these was being taken when work was ceased at the request of Ms Lennox. We remain in contact with Ms Lennox about the concerns she has raised about her belongings.”

Ms Lennox doesn’t have insurance and estimates the destroyed belongings cost around £50,000.

You can donate to Ms Lennox’s fundraiser to replace her belongings here: www.gofundme.com/f/heather-has-lost-everything-in-a-devastating-fire