Manjola Sloan was in her house at Moylaragh Gardens, Balbriggan, with her mother and friend when the blaze broke out shortly after 10.30pm. Her husband, Alan, was trick-or-treating with their two young children, aged 2 and 13, in the estate at the time. The fire left the house completely destroyed.

The young family now face the prospect of being homeless this Christmas after the upstairs of the house was “completely destroyed” in the blaze. Thousands of euro worth of personal belongings, including personal items such as photographs, were destroyed.

“I was downstairs with my mom and my friend when the fire broke out,” Manjola said. “It started in my bedroom, and because the door was closed, I didn’t realise the house was on fire. It wasn’t until people started knocking on the front door that we realised what was going on. They were screaming ‘get out, there’s a fire upstairs’.

“I ran up the stairs and opened the door to the room. My bed was ablaze. I tried desperately to throw water on it, but no matter what I did I couldn’t stop the fire from spreading to the furniture and curtains.

“We ran out of the house. My mom called my niece on her mobile to tell her what was going on. My husband then raced back.” She said it took over two hours for crews from Dublin Fire Brigade to put out the blaze. In its aftermath she described it as “completely gutted”

“What we’re wearing at the moment is what we have left,” said Manjola’s husband. “Everything was completely destroyed. We don’t know what sparked it off; it could have been anything. It’s been an extremely difficult night for us but the help we’ve received from locals has been incredible. We haven’t slept – the whole ordeal has just been bewildering. It’s been a nightmare for all of us,” he said.

Separately, Dublin Fire Brigade crews in Balbriggan were forced to withdraw while battling other fires over anti-social behaviour. In all the fire department answered over 700 calls relating to fires on Halloween night.