A family's holiday turned into a nightmare after they were forced to flee their blazing caravan.

Philip and Stephanie Newman lost everything, including their two year-old son Luke's precious Thomas the Tank Engine collection.

Mrs Newman, 24, speaking from back home in Cortoncroft, Kirby Cross, said: "We are lucky to be alive."

The family had been staying at a caravan park at Mullion in Cornwall.

Mrs Newman said: "My husband had just come back from swimming. He had jumped in the shower and I was with the little one when the smoke alarm went off.

"There was smoke coming from the boiler at the back and then flames started coming out. I got my husband out of the shower and grabbed Luke and we ran out.

"Because he only had a towel round him he ran back to get some clothes. A firemen, who was on holiday on the site, tried to fight the blaze with a fire extinguisher but it was black smoke and within minutes the blaze had spread."

Mrs Newman said that within ten minutes the caravan was "burnt to the ground".

She said: "It was literally reduced to ashes. We lost everything. We just had the clothes we were standing up in - not even any shoes."

But the worst thing, she said, was that Luke's entire Thomas the Tank collection of about 30 trains and carriages and other bits and pieces was destroyed.

"We looked for them after but they were just a charred lump," she said.

The family, who returned home on Friday, were badly shaken by the fire but decided to stay on and were given other accommodation.

The blaze happened at about 6.45pm on Tuesday - just a few days into their week-long holiday.

Jonathan Fleet, general manager of Weststar Holiday Parks' Mullion Park, said an investigation had been launched but so far the cause of the blaze had not been established.

"I am just grateful they came out all right," he said.

Fire wrecked their holiday - Philip and Stephanie Newman with son Luke

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