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Paul O’Brien, 47, said he was thankful to be alive after a disposable grill caused £100,000 worth of damage to his home.

He had invited some friends to his home in Trafalgar Place, Lytham, for a barbecue as they watched the football match between Russia and England in June 2021.

Roughly ten hours later, Mr O'Brien put the disposable barbecue – which “felt cold” to the touch – in a wheelie bin before heading to bed.

Mr O'Brien said he became an on-call firefighter "to give back to the community" (Credit: SWNS)

But in the early hours of the morning, he was woken up by banging on his front door and the screams of his girlfriend.

He said: “Looking out of our bedroom, you could see the two kids’ bedrooms, and it was just bright orange.

“Because we opened the front door, the oxygen came in and the fire just went whoosh, and the smoke just engulfed the house.

“It felt like we were there for an hour. In reality, it was three or four minutes.”

The ashes from the barbecue continued to smoulder throughout the night before igniting (Credit: LFRS)

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The couple luckily made it out with their two boys, then aged two and eight, before the blaze gutted their home.

The fire placed the family in temporary housing for two years and caused them to lose nearly all of their possessions.

“I thought I knew how long the coals could smoulder for. I was wrong,” he added.

“A £2 barbecue caused over £100,000 of damage to my home.”

Mr O’Brien recently moved back into the home and became an on-call firefighter at Lytham Fire Station as a way to “give back” to the community

And as a trained firefighter, he has also warned others about the dangers of barbecues.

He said: “You think you know how to put out a barbecue, you think you’ve done the right thing. The barbecue had been out for ten hours and you put it in the bin.

“There was obviously just one little rogue ember in there that wasn’t out. It caused a hundred thousand pounds worth of damage just from this £2 barbeque.”

“If you do use one, submerge it in water to be certain it is no longer burning.”

For more information about barbecues and chimeneas safety, visit www.lancsfirerescue.org.uk/bbq.

Lytham man whose house burned down after £2 disposable barbecue caught alight in bin becomes firefighter