FAMILIES in a quiet estate were forced to flee for their lives in the dead of night when a fire tore through a flat in their block.

At about 3.30am on Tuesday, May 29, a blaze broke out in a top floor flat in a two storey block in Copperfield, which is in the Limes Farm estate in Chigwell.

David Armstrong, 54, lives on the bottom floor of the block.

He said: “I was fast asleep and there was this knock at my door.

“It was my neighbour and he said that a fire had broken out upstairs and everyone needed to get out.”

“When we got outside we could see that the whole of the roof on one side was on fire. There were flames rising high up into the sky.

“I was standing outside with all of the neighbours shivering with shock, it had to be shock because it was not cold outside.”

By the time the fire brigade arrived the resident of the flat on fire and most of the other eight properties had evacuated from the block to safety.

One woman was led to safety by fire fighters.

There were no injuries.

Copperfield resident Richard Mortimer, 79, said: “I stood next to the man who lived in the flat who was standing there watching it. He said that his TV had exploded. Of course he was really devastated, everything he had was in there.”

Mr Armstrong added: “We were all there until about 7am while the fire brigade put the fire out.

“Some of the neighbours brought us cups of tea out, the community really came together.”

Neighbour Allen Warner, 64, said: “The man who lives there is a friend and he is absolutely devastated, he has lost everything.

“He is a musician and all of his instruments are gone, his guitars and amps, everything.

“”All he has are the clothes he is standing in. He is really lucky to be alive though."

The man is believed to have lived in the flat with his girlfriend.

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