Gregory Lawless, 54, awoke to a flickering light outside his bedroom door, discovering an air conditioning unit engulfed in flames at the top of his stairs. Acting quickly, Lawless dragged the burning appliance down the stairs and onto his driveway around 2:50 a.m. on August 16.
As he shouted "fire" and pulled the unit away from the house, small flames were visible on the ground. Shortly after he reached for a hose, the unit exploded. His wife, Ainsley, and their 10-year-old son, Jamison, were present during the incident.
Lawless stated he "instinctively" knew it was a fire and that the unit's handle began to break as he moved it. He described his actions as what "any parent or partner would do" to ensure his family's safety.
"I saw the flicker of a flame, and I heard a beeping from the unit, and just ran as fast as I could to get the unit out of the house," Lawless said. "I couldn't believe the timing, that it exploded moments after I got it into the drive."
He expressed relief that his family was safe and that the fire did not spread to a nearby park, noting a prior alert had made him concerned about potential spread.
Ainsley Lawless described the event as a "miracle" that no one was harmed, with only soot damage to the home. She added that the fire brigade informed them that a compressor explosion inside the house could have resulted in the loss of the top floor.
The family had purchased the air conditioning unit, from a reputable brand, for a few hundred pounds approximately five years ago. Ainsley Lawless chose not to disclose the brand's name.
"I woke up to Gregory shouting fire and running out into the hall," she said, noting the unit took only a couple of minutes to explode.
"By some absolute miracle it didn't burn anything," she said. "There is some soot on the walls so we'll have to redecorate, but it's nothing. When it was very hot, we'd had our son on a blow-up bed with us and the air con unit by the window. If this had happened the night before, we wouldn't have been able to get it out, so who knows what would have happened."
The Lawlesses reportedly cleaned the filters and maintained the unit regularly, attributing the incident to "really bad luck." They are in communication with the unit's supplier regarding the incident. Ainsley Lawless stated that the family would now rely on fans and open windows for cooling until a new air conditioning system could be professionally installed, emphasizing their desire to avoid future risks despite having followed proper maintenance procedures.
