Probe into flat blaze

FIREFIGHTERS are today investigating a suspicious blaze, which has destroyed the home of an Ipswich woman on the brink of a new life.

Cheryl Coote had been in Ipswich sorting out paperwork to enable her to start the job she has recently been offered when a friend called to say that her Skylark Lane flat was in flames.

An explosion had blown out the bedroom window of the ground floor flat and the ferocity of the fire had even smashed the windows of the upstairs flat.

Four fire fighters wearing breathing apparatus took more than half an hour to put out the flames at around 4.20pm yesterday.

Neighbours feared that two small children were in the flat in Skylark Lane, although emergency services said there was no one in the flat when they arrived.

Mrs Coote, 30, is devastated by the fire and said she has lost absolutely everything.

She ruefully surveyed what was left of her life, heaped in a charred pile by the back door. The washing on the line and the clothes she was wearing are all the clothes she has left.

Having lived in the flat for three years she had just redecorated it. It is owned by Sanctuary Housing.

Mrs Coote said: "I just bought new bedding and carpets, a new TV and video player, but it is all gone."

Visibly shaken by what had happened she said: "It was supposed to be a new start for me.

"I had been on a training programme and done really well and got some qualifications. Then all of a sudden I have no home."

Mrs Coote is seperated from her husband and had been living at the flat with her brother Edward Moody.

Her neighbour Irene Burrows, who lives upstairs said that she had just got back when the fire started.

She said: "I opened my door and all this black smoke came pouring down the stairs. It has smashed the windows upstairs."

Mrs Burrows said that it is not the first time that there has been a fire at the flat as a blaze had broken out when the previous owner was there.

A spokeswoman for Suffolk Fire Service confirmed the fire was being treated as suspicious.