Closing both doors and trapping the black smoke and gases in the kitchen had saved the house from exploding, Holbrook Fire Brigade Captain Geoff Wheeler and Gavin Jones said.

There was enormous satisfaction when the Holbrook NSW brigade members used offensive fire fighting to extinguish the blaze that was reaching flash-point, ready to explode.

This meant fanning the water at just the right pressure to cool the temperature down from 700 degrees Celsius to prevent a flash-over.

“Using an Akron branch on the water hose, the fanning has to be spot on,” Gavin Jones explained.

“If the droplets are too big, the hot gases can turn into steam and this can push the temperature up between 700 and 1000 degrees.”

At 4pm on Tuesday September 8, a fire started when a pot of oil burst into flames in the kitchen of a rented house at 162 Albury Street.

On seeing the flames licking the cupboards, Milly Baker had raced into the bedroom to grab her mobile phone to call Triple 0. She then exited through the kitchen, closing the door leading back into the house and the back door leading from the kitchen outside.

Milly told her boyfriend Michael Maloney that lessons she had recently attended in fire fighting drill at the Holbrook Village Hostel came to mind as she dealt with the crisis.

When the fire brigade arrived they sprayed the back door to gauge the seriousness of the fire inside. The water had dried about a quarter of the way down so they knew the heat levels were high.

Crouching down and opening the door a crack, they fanned the water, then shut the door to prevent oxygen from feeding the fire. This was repeated until the temperature dropped and two fire fighters entered, closing the door to a crack (a hose width) behind them.

Using breathing apparatus, they couldn’t see a hand in front of their faces as the smoke was a metre from the floor. In amongst the smoke they could see small flashes of flames that fortunately had no where to go.

“The fire was doused with only 100 litres of water,” Geoff Wheeler said.

“This offensive method is fantastic - at one time a house would be destroyed by pouring thousands of litres of water onto the building to put out the fire.”

The fire fighters stressed that Milly’s initial steps of closing the doors had given them time to get there and stop the house from imploding and being burnt to the ground.