FOUR people, including two children, had a lucky escape from an early Monday morning fire that could have killed all of them in their Narere home, outside Suva.

The family had to jump from a window, about 12 feet from the ground, when their four-bedroom house was completely engulfed.

Saiful Nisha, 51, recalled going to the toilet at around 12.30am and noticed the smoke coming from their sitting room.

She had to look twice to see that one side of the wall was already on fire.

“The house had four flats, for our three sons who are all married and for us the elderly couple. I had to run and knock in all the rooms shouting for them to wake up and I had to alert the neighbours too,” Mrs Nisha said.

“I am still thankful that I was able to wake up in the middle of the night to see the fire, otherwise all of us would have died. At that time of night, everyone was fast asleep at home.”

One of her daughters-in-law, Tamsil Ali, said they had to push out one of the windows in order to escape.

“Lucky one of the windows was not grilled. It was made of wood so we had to push that out and jump. We did not care about the height as we jumped for life. One of us was taken to the hospital for injury, and we all sustained minor injuries in the process,” Ms Ali said.

She said the fire spread so quickly that it only took around 30 minutes for the corrugated iron house to be completely razed.

It had also spread to the next house, where two elderly women were sleeping at the time.

The fire brigade came in time to stop the fire from completely destroying the second house. A brand new hybrid car belonging to the family was also destroyed.

When contacted yesterday, National Fire Authority said a statement was going to be issued in the afternoon.