The fire was brought under control within half an hour, but not before it had destroyed all the furniture and stripped plaster from the walls. Picture by Peter Mourant

FIREFIGHTERS feared that a family could have lost their lives in a blaze that engulfed their St Saviour home on Saturday morning.

On arriving at the scene at around 8.45 am, the emergency services were under the impression that the four-bedroom house had people trapped inside and firefighters fought back flames to search the property.

Eventually it was determined that the family and their pets were not in the building on Bashfords Estate, close to Checkers, but that was not before fire crew had battled up a blazing staircase to check the property.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but police and fire investigators will spend this week investigating how the blaze, which could be seen for miles, could have started.

At one point the fire was so intense that it set the garden fence alight. All the furniture was destroyed, plaster was stripped from the walls and every window and its frame were burnt.