Family’s hell as new garden built for kids is burnt down in reported arson

A former firefighter helped stop a home from burning down with a hose after a family’s garden renovation, bought using savings and finished just last weekend, was set alight in a reported arson.

A hot tub purchased just last weekend to ease two relatives’ ill health and a 22-year-old wooden playhouse containing family memorabilia were destroyed in the blaze in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

It happened at around 1am on Tuesday, June 4 in Julie Waters’ Clarkson Avenue home in Cowbit.

She was at home with boyfriend Billy Da Silva, son Matthew (22) and daughter Demi (11).

Julie Waters: “I just happened to wake up and saw this orange glow coming from outside.

The former playhouse.

“I looked out and saw flames coming out from the back fence. It was absolutely terrifying.

“That’s when I screamed for Billy to get up.

“I tried ringing the fire brigade but the phone line had been burned through,” said Julie who doesn’t currently own a mobile phone.

Seeing how quickly the flames were spreading, Billy himself used the garden hose to try and control the fire.

He worked as a fireman for five years back in his native Portugal and he says his brothers are firefighters to this day near Oporto.

He told The Voice that he received burns to his hands, arms and chest, but he was able to keep the fire at bay from the house until fire crews from Spalding and Crowland arrived at around 1.30am.

They used two hose reels and three thermal imaging cameras to extinguish.

The family say they’d spent four days repainting the garden and doing it up for Julie’s grandchildren Theo (2) and Riah Waters-Da Silva (1) to enjoy this summer.

The £350 hot tub was purchased particularly as Theo and Demi suffer with eczema.

They’re particularly upset about the play house which was a two storey wooden structure that’s been passed down through generations and included places to sleep.

A trampoline, slides and other kids toys were also destroyed.

Demi said: “We’d all worked really hard as a family to get the garden together and now it’s all gone.

“Knowing someone did this has made it uncomfortable for us.

“You don’t expect something like this to happen in your own home.”

What’s left of the hot tub.

The family say they feel “targeted” after firefighters told them they believe the fire was started using a naked flame.

A spokesman for Lincolnshire Police, said that investigations were ongoing following the report of an arson.

Julie, who has lived in the council home for 18 years, said “The fire crews said it was probably a naked flame and that something flammable was dropped between the two wooden fence panels at the bottom of the garden.

“It just makes me feel terrified and upset.

“We’d done all this for the children.

“We’ve lost it now, but what can we do.

“I’m just grateful to Billy and what he did with the hose and the fact I woke up when I did.

“Otherwise it could have been a lot worse.”

Julie says the contents of the garden were not covered by insurance.

Zoe Louise Richer Dawson, a friend of Julie’s daughter Georgia, has set up a Go Fund Me Page for the family, primarily to replace the around £500 playhouse.

The page is called “Help to refurbish garden after arson attack”.