Woman’s tea light candles set fire to her bath almost burning her flat down

A woman nearly burnt down her North London flat when her tea light candles melted through her bathtub and set fire to the cladding despite being extinguished after she had taken a bath. 

Lucy Bergman, 24, who works in recruitment, heard a crackling noise and went back into her bathroom to see what it was and found thick, black smoke billowing out.

The fire ripped through the bathroom in her flat in Edgware, North London last Saturday while Lucy and her flatmate evacuated. 

The fire got so intense it blew the window out but firefighters were able to successfully tackle the blaze and stop it spreading. 

 Lucy said: ‘I initially thought the crackling noise was my flat mate straightening her hair, maybe that was the burning smell.

‘I opened the bathroom door and that’s when a thick black smoke blew out into the hallway, so I slammed the door shut and was screaming for everyone to get out.’

‘Luckily we’ve just lost shampoo bottles and nothing major,’ she said.

‘My biggest fear was that the whole flat was going to go up in flames and we were going to lose everything. 

Lucy is now urging people to get heat-proof candles after her tea lights burned through the acrylic on the bath, then sank through to the cladding underneath setting it alight.

The firemen told her the tea light’s metal casing can reach temperatures hotter than an oven even after they’ve been extinguished. 

Lucy added: ‘If we didn’t have a second bathroom, we’d have to get temporary accommodation.

‘The house needs a whole new bathroom and the stairs are ruined as well – and they had to rip the carpets up to see whether the fire fighters have come in.

‘There’s char and black soot everywhere.’