A devastated mother says her family has been left with ‘nothing’ after a karaoke machine caught fire without warning and destroyed their home.
Emma Logan watched in horror as the blaze ripped through her beloved house in Walsall Wood, West Midlands, on Wednesday afternoon.
The 35-year-old returned home to find ‘flames coming out of the roof’ after a battery in the device – that wasn’t turned on and hadn’t been used for a year – exploded.
Emma told it will cost more than £60,000 to repair the property that she shared with her husband, Jon, and their four children, Emily, three, Winter, six, Scarlett, eight, and Brooke, 11.
A friend of the Logan’s has set up a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of rebuilding the home that they had ‘worked all their lives to buy’.
The couple were at work and the children at school when the terrifying blaze broke out.
Teaching assistant Emma was first to arrive at the devastating scene after panicked neighbours raised the alarm.
‘When I pulled up there were literally flames coming out the roof of my house and loads of fire engines and they were just trying to bash my door in at that point to try and get in,’ she said.
‘I literally just sat in the garden and just watched my house burn. I was crying and then I just felt a bit numb. It was like it wasn’t happening,’ she added.
Fortunately the firefighters were able to safely rescue the family’s two dogs from the house, but their pet rabbit sadly died from asphyxiation.
Initially, the couple suspected the fire was caused by an iPad overheating on a bed. However, they soon discovered a far more alarming truth.
A forensic fire investigator confirmed it was their daughter’s iHome Sound Factory Deluxe Karaoke Machine iSF-26 – the model that started the fire that was to blame for the disaster.
Emma said: ‘She [the forensic investigator] rang my husband and confirmed that it was actually the lithium battery that she found.
‘And it was from a karaoke machine that we bought from Smiths, a rechargeable one.
‘It wasn’t turned on and it wasn’t even plugged in. It had been under the bed over 12 months.’
The investigator believes the battery inside the machine had exploded, triggering the blaze.
Firefighters told Emma that 60% of their callouts are for fires started by lithium batteries.
‘If you have any old mobile phones that you keep in your kitchen drawer then you need to get rid because they can just explode’, she warned.
Jon and Emma think it will cost more than £60,000 to repair their home and the huge hole it now has in the roof.
‘I can stand in my bedroom and I can see the sky,’ Emma said.
‘The house is just a mess. The fire was in our loft space. So that’s where we stored all our memories, Christmas decorations, my wedding dress, wedding album,’ she continued.
‘Just all the things that you just have in a loft, keepsakes. There’s nothing left of the top floor of my house.’
Emma took the children – who are currently staying with friends – to see what was left of their home, hoping it would help them understand what had happened.
‘The children are devastated,’ she said.
‘When they saw the house they just cried. They literally broke. They all broke down.’
She added: ‘My daughter’s lost everything. She had a a pet rabbit in her room because it was a house rabbit. She lost her pet that she’d had for like seven years.’
Emma and Jon bought the home just 18 months ago but found out after the fire that their insurance hadn’t been renewed and they would have to cover the damage costs themselves.
So the GoFundMe page has raised more than £8,000 has been raised to help the couple rebuild their house.
has contacted the karaoke machine’s manufacturers for comment.
West Midlands Fire Service said lithium ion batteries were commonly used in a variety of household devices and posed minimal risk when handled correctly.
They warned people to be alert if they noticed unusual odours, changes in colour, shape or size, excessive heat, leaking or strange noises.