Kim Walker was jarred awake by her three-year-old son's calls from across the hallway.

"At first I thought it was nothing and told him to go back to sleep," she recalls.

When the shouting continued between the sound of Daniel's coughs, Kim quickly got out of bed to investigate.

"As I stepped onto the landing I was hit by what looked like a thick mist. Then I noticed that smoke was pouring up from downstairs. It took a couple of seconds for it to register that my house was on fire."

The blaze raging in the kitchen had been burning for at least two hours. The family, now trapped upstairs by the choking fumes, would normally have been alerted by the smoke alarm in the hallway, giving them ample time to escape.

Kim, 29, of Haslemere Close, Holme Wood, Bradford explained: "At the time we were decorating downstairs and the wallpaper stripper kept setting the alarm off so we just took the batteries out."

She said: "When I stood in the hallway with the smoke beginning to fill upstairs, it was the most terrifying moment in my life."

After gathering up Daniel in her arms, Kim dashed back through to her bedroom to wake her husband Trevor.

"I had gone halfway down the stairs and didn't know where the fire was. My first thought was that we would have to get out of an upstairs window and onto the porch roof."

Trevor ventured downstairs and found that, because the kitchen door had been closed, there was still an exit out of the house. After he opened the front door, the couple wrapped a wet towel around Daniel's head before making their escape.

Although the family had got away with their lives, the fire, which had been caused by a smouldering cigarette, gutted the kitchen causing £13,000 of damage.

Kim said: "If Daniel hadn't woken up, we could have easily slept through it and been killed."

Trevor said: "The smoke alarm would have given us plenty of time to get out - as it was we were all placed in danger."

The 30-year-old said: "Before this happened I took smoke alarms for granted - I even took the batteries out. Now I check them regularly because I realise just how important they are."

Kim added: "To have them installed and working is such an easy thing to do. I would never want to go through something like that again as long as I live."

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