MOTHER of four Philomena Richardson is warning parents not to leave their children for as much as a minute following a fire in her Rossendale home.

And she has hailed 12-year-old son Marc a hero after he led his brother and sisters to safety and called the fire brigade. "Without Marc and his quick thinking our home would have been destroyed," she said.

Philomena, 30, left her children in the house in Windsor Avenue, Newchurch, for just five minutes while she nipped to a corner shop for some milk.

Her four children - Marc, brother Callum, three, and sisters Hayley, 10, and Kerry, six - knew where she was and were playing quietly.

But when Hayley went upstairs Philomena's bedroom was alight. A perfumed oil burner had set fire to clothes in the bedroom, and the room and contents were blazing. Hayley raced downstairs to tell her older brother, who helped her take Kerry and Callum outside.

Said Marc: "They waited outside on the grass while I ran in and called the fire brigade. Then I went back upstairs and shut the bedroom door because it was left open. I came back down and turned the gas and electric off."

Cool-headed Marc said he remembered what to do from things his mum had told him, and lessons he had had about fire safety at his old school, Hapton CE/Methodist.

Now a pupil at Alder Grange School, Rawtenstall, Marc said: "I wasn't frightened at all."

The blaze destroyed all his mother's clothes, a music system, a video recorder and 1,000 tapes of music dating back to the 1950s. Philomena said: "I was stunned when I got back from the shop. I've been using fragrant oil burners all my life and never had any problems. I've even gone out shopping and left one burning. I've had the one that started the fire for five years now.

"But I would say to all parents: don't leave your children on their own, not even to nip to the corner shop."

Firefighters put out the blaze, which was confined to the bedroom. Other rooms in the house were affected by smoke.

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