Girl dies after Christmas tree catches fire

A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl died after a fault with fairy lights set a Christmas tree on fire and gutted her family home during a New Year’s celebration.

Caoimhe Freyne was trapped in an upstairs bedroom as her mother frantically searched smoke-filled rooms for her. Distraught Anna Freyne waited outside the destroyed house for hours while firefighters dealt with the blaze, refusing to leave until they located her daughter's body. She then made the heartbreaking journey to her husband's hospital bedside to tell him the devastating news. Garrett Freyne was being treated for a back complaint since the previous day and had no idea of the horror that had struck his family.

The fire started at the Freyne's dormer bungalow home on the banks of the Grand Canal near the village of Ardclough four miles from Celbridge, Co Kildare, just before 4.30am yesterday.