Quick-thinking Scunthorpe postie raises the alarm

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Quick-thinking Scunthorpe postie raises the alarm after spotting house on fire

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A quick-thinking postman has saved a family home from burning down after spotting a house fire while out on his rounds.

Dave Shipman was delivering letters on Bigby Grove in Scunthorpe when he heard a smoke alarm and spotted black smoke coming out of a letterbox.

He quickly rang the fire service, who managed to tackle the blaze before it did serious damage to the house.

The family of five were luckily out visiting friends when an electrical fault caused a fire to start in the dining room on Saturday, August 4.

The interior is badly smoke damaged and the electrics have been destroyed by the fire, while a ceiling has been badly damaged.

Mr Shipman, 43, has been a postman for 12 years. He said: "I have never experienced anything like this before in my life.

"All that ran through my head was that I needed to find out if people were inside the house. That was my first concern. You could tell by the amount of smoke that it was serious, but luckily I saw a neighbouring house with the door open.

"I ran over and found out that the family wasn't in, so contacted the fire service who came very quickly.

"I feel quite proud, because through doing my job I have managed to help someone else."

Claire Louise Dean lives at the property with her partner Andrew Coulson and three children.

She was out with her 1, 4 and 11-year-old children at around 1pm when the fire started, while Andrew was at work.

They will now be forced to live in temporary accommodation for six months while repairs are made, but say they are glad the postie spotted the fire when he did.

Claire, 32, said: "We are so grateful to the postman because he was the one who spotted the danger and raised the alarm. He has saved our house.

"Having been lucky enough to be out the house when the fire started, I feel like I've won the lottery.

"If this sort of thing had happened at night we all could have died.

"The postman and fire service are heroes and deserve a lot of praise."