Woman lucky to be alive after house blaze

A woman was lucky to escape from a fire that destroyed her house in Mohill in the early hours of last Thursday morning.
The fire, which remains unexplained at the moment, caused serious damage to the property at Boeshill, Mohill.
Ann Guilfoyle said that she was in bed when the fire broke out but failed to hear the fire alarm as she had inserted ear plugs into her ears to drown out the sound of traffic and passers-by to get a good night sleep.
She is now warning people of the dangers of using ear plugs when going to bed as it can mask the sound of a smoke alarm.
Thankfully, Ann woke up to the barely audible noise of the alarm and managed to make her way out of the house through thick, black smoke.
The fire service later told her son that “in another five minutes, I wouldn't have made it out of the house.”

“I was very lucky,” Ann Guilfoyle told the Leitrim Observer following a blaze this week that nearly claimed her life.
Ann said that she was in bed when the fire broke out but failed to hear the fire alarm as she had inserted ear plugs into her ears to drown out the sound of traffic and passers-by to get a good night sleep.
Ann, who resides at Boeshill, Mohill, said that she wants to issue a warning to those that use ear plugs on a regular basis; that they could be fatal if a fire breaks out as the house occupant may not hear the fire alarm.
“I was around ten days home from hospital following a big abdominal surgery. I had gone to bed; I wasn't sleeping great. I live beside the road and there was noise on the road. At around 1.30am, I decided I was going to put in earplugs, the spongy ones. I stuck them into my ears and went to bed.”
Ann continued that she eventually nodded off; however, she woke up to a barely audible noise. “I woke up and actually couldn't see enough to make my way to the bedroom door. At this point, I think the smoke alarms were working but I didn't hear them because I had the earplugs in.”
She managed to make her way out of the house and says that the fire service told her son that “in another five minutes, I wouldn't have made it out of the house; I'd be still in the bed, if I hadn't woken up when I did and left.
“I went straight out the back door and I had a job doing that because I could barely find the door; the smoke was black.”
Ann said the house and all her possessions are essentially “destroyed” from smoke damage or the flames themselves.
“It destroyed my sitting room - my furniture, television, video, Sky box. The ceiling in the sitting room is burnt; the window in the sitting room is gone; the ceiling in the hall is burnt; the floor in the hall is burnt; everything else is covered in black smoke - it's all black.”
Ann was talking to the Leitrim Observer from her neighbour's house as her home is completely uninhabitable.
“I came here when I got out of the house and frightened the lives out of them banging on the window to call the fire brigade because I had no phone with me.”
She also took the opportunity to praise her neighbours for being there for her in her time of need. “All of them have all been so brilliant,” she said.
Ann said that she “needs some form of help financially.”
She said “75 percent of the damage is smoke and the rest is fire damage. The smoke is on things that can't be washed and will have to be thrown out. All my clothes are ruined.”
Ann said that nobody can explain yet why her house went on fire and fire investigators, who arrived the next day from Sligo, have yet to determine a cause.
“Both my son and I spoke to them and they could not tell me how it started. They are gone off with my camera box and were able to say that seconds after I passed the sitting room window on the outside, the window blew out.
“He also saw me coming out of the back door in a big cloud of smoke. There is just no explanation for the fire. They can't find a reason why,” she said.
If you would like to help Ann you can do at: gofund.me/af3f996d