A Stamford Hill family with nine children escaped a blaze on Tuesday morning after a Pesach candle fell and set their house alight.

According to the London Fire Brigade, the family was woken by a smoke alarm after the candle fell from its holder and landed on a table.

Neil Crossfield of the Fire Investigation Unit said: “Only one of the three smoke alarms in the house was working and if that had been defective then we could have been faced with multiple fatalities.”