A bedroom mirror set the house on fire – don’t make the same mistake we did

The bonfire of the vanities?

A British couple are warning the public to keep reflective surfaces out of direct sunlight after a small make-up mirror placed next to a window sparked a fire inside their home.

“It’s not something you think about,” Sam Wilkinson, 48, told South West News Service of the terrifying thorn, which happened in July. 18 at their home in Rochester, Kent.

The registered nurse and her partner, Michael, were in their apartment when they noticed an alarming smell.

“I was working in the office, which is directly below the room that caught fire, and I could smell the burning, like burning toast,” Michael recalled. “I checked my fan to see if it was overheating, I went downstairs to see if anyone was cooking and then I heard the smoke alarm on the top floor go off.”

In a panic, Michael ran upstairs to wake Sam, then the couple ran out of the house and called the emergency services.

Two fire trucks arrived and then extinguished the inferno on the third floor, while the fire brigade also managed to save the family’s cat, Tigger.

Fortunately, while many items in the bedroom were destroyed – including a melted TV and blackened walls – the flames were largely contained by a closed door.

This prevented it from spreading to other parts of the settlement.

That’s when firefighters discovered the alarming cause of the inferno: Sunlight that had shined through a small makeup mirror and ignited the couple’s curtains.

“We had just redecorated the room a few days ago, so we weren’t sure what caused it,” Sam said. “When the firemen told us it was the mirror, we thought how can a mirror do this?”

She added, “Now we know that anything reflective or shiny near a window where the sun hits it can start a fire.”

The couple are sharing their ordeal “to help keep others safe and to remind everyone to move reflective objects away from windows and out of direct sunlight,” Sam said.

“Our advice now [is to] just be careful and educate people in your family about the dangers,” said her other half. “It’s a small, preventable thing that can have devastating effects.”