A MAN was lucky to escape with his life after his family home exploded into a fireball, sending flames high into the sky.

The blaze ripped through the house in Speedwell Avenue, Chatham. Neighbours either side of the terraced property were evacuated after smoke filled the upstairs of their homes after filtering through the adjoining loft space.

Neighbours said the house was occupied by a couple called Lee and Majella, in their 30s, and their teenage son and daughter.

Lee was taken to Medway Maritime Hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and shock. His wife was visiting her mother when the fire broke out just before midnight on Friday.

The family pets, a dog and one or more cats who were upstairs, perished. Neighbour Ken Hatt said: "I thought someone had set light to a car, so I went outside to look and realised what was going on, I saw the fire through the windows before they blew out.

"Their daughter Kelly arrived with her boyfriend and went in and rescued her father, she was very brave.

"I went and woke my elderly neighbour and we all gathered at another house. We were worried the fire would spread through the lofts.

"Another neighbour who ran to call the fire brigade slipped on the ice and cut her face. It's a tragedy. They're a lovely family, very nice and quiet, and Lee had been working on the house for the last year and a half.

"He'd done the bathroom, kitchen and toilet and just got a new three-piece suite last weekend. All the community wishes them well and we're just waiting to see what we can do to help. When something like this happens we all pull together."

The family are staying with Majella's mother in Sedge Crescent.

Four fire crews attended the blaze, two from Medway, one from Chatham retained and one from Maidstone. A firefighter from Medway said: "The man was lucky to get out alive.

"What we had here was a backdraft situation where the fire used up all the oxygen and the house then exploded. If the man had still been in there he wouldn't have survived.

"Fire engulfed the whole house, which is why the windows blew out. It's quite a rare sort of fire but very dangerous. "