A Cardiff woman has described her terrifying narrow escape from a fire which broke out in her partner's flat and destroyed it completely. Police, fire, and ambulance crews raced to the scene on Sunday morning to rescue Rashel McCauley and her boyfriend Abdifatah Osman and put out the blaze, which started in the kitchen of the flat in Cowbridge Road East.
Rashel, 34, said the pair "can't believe" they survived the incident, which saw them trapped in their bedroom as smoke billowed from the kitchen and engulfed the entire room. It was so thick that they couldn't see anything and were left crawling around frantically for the TV, which they used to smash the bedroom window to flee.
It is thought the fire might have started after the battery of an electric bike exploded in the kitchen of the flat, which Abdifatah, 40, shares with three other people, but this hasn't been confirmed by the fire service. The service said that due to fire damage and concerns regarding the structural integrity of the property it was unable to conduct a full fire investigation. You can read all our Cardiff stories here.
