A JERSEY couple had to flee their French home in the middle of the night after a lightning strike started a fire that destroyed almost all of the first floor.

Sandra Fox (56) and Gary Clements (52) and Mr Clements’s 13-year-old son Liam had to run from their home in Couvalou, near Dol de Bretagne, at around 4 am on Wednesday.

None of the three was hurt, but all have had to undergo tests in hospital.

The fire gutted most of the upstairs of the French farmhouse where Mr Clements and Mrs Fox have lived for two and a half years and destroyed the roof and staircase.

Miss Robins had to go to a neighbour’s house to call the fire service because the storm had taken down electricity and phone lines and she did not have a mobile phone.

The firefighters arrived half an hour later but could not save the first floor of the house.

Miss Robins, a former Post Office worker, said: ‘It started in our bedroom and Gary woke up and immediately woke me up.

The only bit of wire in the corner of the room where the fire started was the telephone line.

‘The top of the house is gone and the wardrobes and beds are all gone.

We have still got the kitchen downstairs, but the ceiling is sagging.’ Miss Robins said they had managed to save their dog, cats and parrot, as well as their photo collection, the kitchen table and her late mother’s collection of crystal.