Ten people escaped injury from three separate house fires in Derry yesterday morning. The first fire was caused by an exploding chip-pan. Three people managed to leave their house at Lisclune Drive shortly before 5 a.m. The house was fitted with a smoke alarm, but its battery had not been fitted properly.
The second fire was in a guest house on Duncraigan Road. A couple and their two children were trapped in an upstairs bedroom but managed to climb on to a ledge. In Nicholson Square a couple and their 11-year-old daughter had to be rescued after becoming trapped in an upstairs room of their house.
Meanwhile, a petrol bomb was thrown at a house in Ridgeway Drive, Derry, at around 3 a.m. yesterday. Three more primed devices were discovered under a car parked in the driveway.
A second incident occurred at 5 a.m. yesterday in the Birch Drive area of Hollywood, Co Down, when a bottle full of paint was thrown through the bedroom window. Two cars parked outside the house were destroyed by petrol bombs and several unexploded devices were found in the garden.
Nobody was injured in either incident.