BLAZE DESTROYS MAN'S C0TTAGE.
AMMANFORD pensioner Harry Matthews lost his three cats and everything he owned on Monday night when his Heol Ddu cottage was destroyed by a chip-pan fire.
Neighbours said Mr Matthews who was celebrating his 70th birthday alone when the blaze started, made frantic efforts to get back in the house to rescue his cats. But he was beaten back by the heat and dense smoke, and had to flee the building when flames burned through an overhead power cable and blacked out the area.
The fire started in an overheated chip pan. By the time the fire brigade arrived at Mount Pleasant, ten minutes later, flames were leaping through the roof. “The house was well alight and there was nothing we could do to save it,” a brigade spokesman told the Guardian.
Mr Matthews, who formerly kept the health shop in Quay Street, Ammanford, was treated for a cut hand and smoke inhalation by an ambulance crew called to the scene. He cut his hand trying to get back into the rented house, where he had lived for 14 years, to rescue his cats. But it is believed that all three animals died in the blaze.
The alarm was raised by Mr Matthews' neighbours, Gwyn and Nesta Stone. “The lights went out suddenly,” said Mr Stone, “and we were looking for candles when our son told us that he could hear Harry screaming for his cats. “Those animals were like children to him. They were his whole world and he is devastated by their loss.”
Mr Matthews, who works for a Swansea contract cleaning firm, is now staying temporarily with friends in Ammanford. He lost everything in the blaze and was left with only the clothes he stood up in.
Mrs Stone, who was sorting through her family's belongings on Tuesday morning to find items which might fit Mr Matthews, said: “It is a very sad story.
“I am told that Harry wasn't insured, so he will get nothing back. But it is the loss of his three cats which will hit him hardest. I just wish we could have saved them.”
CATS FLEW FROM BLAZE!
FURRY SURVIVORS FOUND.
TWO of Ammanford blaze victim Harry Matthews' cats “leapt through the roof” as the fire took hold at his Heol Ddu home, says one of the neighbours.
Mrs Jane Brazier, who lives just yards from Mr Matthews' now-gutted home told the Guardian that, when the roof was catching alight she saw something jump through the roof. “I assumed that they could not have been anything other than Mr Matthews' cats. “We did not say anything to him at the time because we did not want to raise his hopes that any of his cats could have escaped the fire – only to have those hopes later dashed,” she explained.
But later – after 70-year-old-Mr Matthews had left the scene – she and another neighbour, Mrs Nesta Stone, searched the area to see if they could find any surviving cats. As it happened, that search was fruitless and Mr Matthews returned the following day and found Matthew and Spotty himself.
A third pet cat, Moustache, had been found dead by firemen. Mr Matthews was later told of his neighbours' efforts to search for the cats. He told the Guardian that, as the fire was beginning to take hold, the lights went out, “I could hear my cats howling in the bedroom, but I couldn't get at them because of the flames. “I went outside and got a ladder. “When I got that up to the bedroom I broke the glass with my fist. “But I still couldn't get them out”, he said.
Mr Matthews was later told of Mrs Brazier and Mrs Stone's search party. “I'm so grateful to them – and also to the people of Ammanford generally.” Since the fire he has been staying with friend Mrs Frieda Edwards at Carregamman. But he cannot say enough bout the generosity of the people of the town.
“Some of them – people I've never met – have been giving me clothing, because I left the house with nothing other than what I was wearing. “They've been wonderful”, he added.
