A MUM and her two young daughters have been made homeless after their tumble dryer caught fire and caused thousands of pounds of damage.

Stacey Vella, 30, and her two daughters, aged five and three, of William Street, Grays, were woken by the sound of the fire alarm on Saturday at 10.30pm to “smoke so thick they couldn’t see.”

Mrs Vella dragged her two daughters out of bed and into the street as fire crews were forced to smash through the back door so they could breathe.

The distraught mum, who has now been driven to sleeping on her sister’s floor with her girls said she was lucky to only be in the next room when the alarm went off so she could respond quickly and save her girls.

The blaze gutted the kitchen, bathroom and dining area and destroying a fridge freezer, two other freezers, microwave, tumble dryer, hoover and halogen oven, clothes, shoes and a Nintendo DS.

Mrs Vella, 30, said: “My eldest daughter has autism so obviously the noise of the fire alarm and the panic caused her complete distress.

“To be honest the whole upheaval of having to leave our home and stay with my sister has been extremely hard for us all.”

She said she had sent an email to manufacturer Hotpoint but she had not had a response yet.

The family, whose landlord had building insurance, will stay at the sister’s until they can afford to re-decorate the kitchen and living room and replace thousands of pounds worth of kitchen equipment.

The shocking fire is the latest in a series of tumble-dryer related blazes which have swept the country over the last year.

Manufacturers Hotpoint have been recalling driers made between April 2004 and October 2015 following the discovery of a fault.