A wife whose home went up in flames with her pets still inside amid the searing London heat desperately phoned her husband as the flames lapped at their house.
Around 100 firefighters were called to the blaze - believed to have started in an area of scrubland and spread to a nearby row of terraced houses - at around 1pm.
Plumes of thick black smoke were seen from up to ten miles from the blaze in Wennington, Havering, east London.
