A teenager is lucky to be alive after fire ripped through the family garage destroying thousands of pounds worth of camera kit.
The garage, which served as an extra room for 17 year old journalism student Kallum Mueller, burnt to the ground following an electrical fault in a chest freezer.
The fire has destroyed all of his camera kit including new printing equipment and a branded gazebo for his business, RKD Media, that he had organised ready to take official photographs at St George’s fayre in March at the end of the month.
Peterborough Regional College student Kallum had fallen sleep on a couch in the garage when he woke at about 1am on Wednesday night.
He said: “It was glowing with flames under the settee. I was half asleep and took a jug of apple juice and threw it over the flames,” before realising the fire was bigger than first thought.
He rushed outside to grab a hose reel and turned off the electrics before trying to put out the fire with the hose.
“It had taken hold and the fumes were getting really thick so I called 999,” he said.
He then shouted to wake up his 15 year old sister Sasha and his Mum.
Within minutes two fire crew arrived who took around an hour and a half to extinguish the fire.
Among the items destroyed in the blaze were six camera bodies, a range of lenses, laptops, printing equipment and a motorbike.
The flames shattered windows at the back of the family home in Knights End Road, March, and also damaged the next door neighbour’s garage.
Cambridgeshire Fire service said the cause of the fire is believed to be an electrical fault.
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