A TERRIFIED MOTHER led her three young children to safety as flames licked up a wall of their Telford home after a suspected arson attack today.

The 25-year-old, who did not want to be named, was woken up by her smoke alarm after the blaze broke out in wheelie bins near the front door of the end terrace property in Sutton Hill.

And she looked out of her first floor bedroom window in Stebbings to see flames spreading from the bins to cladding on the wall near her front door shortly before 2.50am.

She said today it was not the first time she had been targeted and her wheelie bins had been set on fire in August while she was on holiday.

“I wondered what was going on. I was really tired, I had been very poorly. I just don’t understand somebody doing this when I have got no enemies,” she said.

“I was in bed. I was lucky I had a smoke alarm, it woke me up. I looked out of the top window to see all flames.

“Somebody had set fire to the three wheelie bins.”

She said she carried her three-year-old daughter and five-year-old son and led her eight-year-old daughter out of the home and into the back garden.

But when they were there she discovered she could not open a padlock on the back gate, which was eventually forced open by her mother.

The family could not get out of the front door because the flames were so close.

She said today she was thinking of moving from the two storey Sanctuary Housing Group home where she had lived for about eight years.

She said her children were uninjured but shocked after their ordeal.

She said they were now trying to get the housing trust to repair the damage to her home.

Matt Lamb, watch manager at Tweedale Fire Station, said today the fire was believed to have been started deliberately.

He said firefighters spent time at the property checking the fire was out.

Pete Simmonds, of Telford police, said the cause of the fire was being treated as unexplained and the matter was being investigated by officers from Madeley.

He appealed for anyone with information or witnesses to contact Telford police on 0300 333 3000.

By Lisa Rowley