Corona Newton was cheering her daughter on at a football match when she learned her house was on fire.
The mum-of-five could see smoke in the distance as she made the panicked drive back to Shaw, watching on in horror as her home of 20 years burned.
“Literally everything has gone,” Corona, 52, told the Manchester Evening News. “Everything apart from what the kids were stood up in has been damaged.”
It took just minutes for the blaze to engulf the property, forcing her sons to flee. The devastating incident happened at midday on Saturday, February 25.
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The fire ignited in the loft and quickly spread throughout the house after civil servant Corona, who had been having issues with her electric shower, called out an electrician.
“There’s no roof,” Corona added. “There’s water damage that has gone all the way to the ground floor; there’s no ceiling in the lounge.
“I could see all the smoke and I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s my house’. I was driving up the hill and I could see the flames. My heart sank. It’s not something you expect on a Saturday when you go out for a football match.
“There were about five fire engines there at the time. It was all taped off. All I was bothered about were the kids.”
Thankfully, Corona’s children managed to flee the property unharmed. But the blaze was so devastating there is nothing left to salvage – meaning the family have lost everything they own.
“It’s all the little things that you don’t even think about,” she added. “I always kept my birth certificate in a separate file in the kitchen. We’ve lost everything. It’s the enormity of what needs replacing.
“A pair of football boots and an Xbox were salvageable but literally everything else has gone. My son was born at 25 weeks, he was born in the house. [We’ve lost] all the little bits from when he was premature, all the memory boxes. Everything is gone.”
The family’s insurance company have placed them into a hotel in Chadderton and they’re not likely to have another permanent home again for around nine months.
“We have to do everything from scratch,” Corona said. “We haven’t had a payout from the insurance yet.
“But the support we’ve had from the local community has been absolutely amazing. We’ve been overwhelmed. We’ve not taken a penny, we’ve decided to leave it and when we get temporary accommodation at least we have something to start with.”
Staff at Ordsall Park Juniors, where Corona’s daughter attends football, have since set up a fundraising page to help the family get back onto their feet.
Anyone wishing to make a donation can do so by clicking the link here.
The page reads: “This weekend, as the whistle for KO blew, one of our families received a call that’s everyone’s worst nightmare. Their house had gone up in flames, with their other two older children still in it. Luckily, their boys managed to get out in time but they returned home to find the entire contents of their house have gone, they were left only with the clothes on their backs, everything else went up in smoke.
“They are now put up in a Travelodge with absolutely nothing and have been told it’s likely to be around 9 months before they could be in their home again. Thankfully, and most importantly, they at least still have each other but for everything else they will need to start again.
“Ciara, from our U14 Lightning girls team, and her family are very much like the rest of us, live and breathe for football with their lives revolving around games and training most days. So, I’ve set up this page to see if we, the wonderful grassroots community (and all connected to it), can help them.”
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