Seventy-two per cent of homes hit by fires in Barnet do not have a smoke detector. This week, The Times Group launches Hold Fire a campaign to try and get smoke alarms into as many homes as possible. HUGH CHRISTOPHER spoke to one man who will always regret not installing a smoke alarm

Jason Griffiths finally opened his eyes two days after he had lost consciousness.

His last memory was lying on his lawn as dark clouds of smoke billowed overhead, with people rushing around his bloodied body.

Pumped full of morphine, it took him a few moments to realise he was now in a hospital ward and that the blurred and shapeless vision sitting next to him was a nurse.

"I'm sorry Mr Griffiths," the nurse whispered to him, "but you have lost your arm." Suddenly everything snapped into clear, painful reality.

In the early hours of May 2, just 48 hours earlier, Jason watched his life go up in flames.

He had been asleep at his council-owned home in Deansbrook Road, Edgware, which he shared with partner Terri Morgan and her three children, Mark, seven, Sharon, 11, and Charlotte, 13.

A blaze, caused by a discarded cigarette, started downstairs. Terri noticed the smoke drifting upstairs and woke her boyfriend, flushed with panic.

"She was ranting and raving, terrified," said Jason, 32. "My initial reaction was to get the kids out."

The fire brigade was called but the blaze was growing by the second and the thick smoke meant Jason could not find Mark. In a desperate attempt to find an escape route, he smashed his fist through the glass pane of the bathroom window.

"I couldn't hear anything, I couldn't see anything, it was getting too much. I thumped the window, and as I did I felt my hand go.

"The fire brigade arrived and took me down the stairs. They put me on the lawn and I was just screaming. I needed to know that everyone was out, that everyone was safe. The fire officer turned to me and said: Thank God we've got them all out' and as soon as I knew, I passed out."

Terri and the three children emerged with only minor smoke inhalation from the blaze. Jason was not so fortunate. He was rushed to intensive care at Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, where he was treated for a severed artery in his arm a result of smashing the window.

With massive blood loss, and gangrene setting in, doctors had no option but to amputate.

Jason remembers that night with a quivering voice and deep regret in his eyes.

"We didn't have a smoke alarm. I couldn't afford one, I never had the money. I was someone who believed it would never happen to me, and it did."

Our Hold Fire campaign, in partnership with Barnet's firefighters, aims to raise awareness of the need for smoke alarms.

"Seventy-two per cent of dwellings in the borough that have fires are not fitted with a smoke detector.

"That is an incredible statistic," said borough commander Dean Johns, who wants to get every house in the borough fitted with a smoke alarm.

"Those people who decide not to get a smoke detector are making a decision that could affect their own welfare as well as that of their family all for the sake of something that is freely available."

Jason would agree. "I went back to visit the house. It was only when I walked out that I realised how lucky I was to be alive."

Jason has now moved back to live with his parents in Hounslow. He is still employed as a chef but is currently on leave.

In around a week's time he will be fitted with a prosthetic limb.

If Jason Griffiths had a smoke alarm, he might not have lost his arm. He's lucky he didn't lose a lot more.

Fire Facts

- House fires in the Barnet area have doubled since last year. There were 19 fires from April to September 2001 while from January to June this year, there have been 38. Fires in Hendon, Mill Hill, and Edgware are also on the rise.

- Barnet's fire brigade has been called out 1,573 times this year.

- 25 Barnet residents were seriously injured in house fires this year, with one fatality

July 8, 2002 15:00