Steph McGovern, 37, who is expecting her first child with her girlfriend, spoke to a family who were affected by a terrifying house fire experience on Watchdog last week. The BBC Breakfast presenter shared a surprising fact about smoke alarms during the segment, as she revealed: “We all rely on smoke alarms to wake us up so we can all get out of the house as fast as possible. “But we found out the chances are, if you’ve got kids, they won’t hear the alarm.” Addressing the family’s story, Steph explained: “It was one night last March when fire tore through Karen and John Martin’s home in Harrogate.
“They and their two daughters were fast asleep.”
Speaking to the parents, the host exclaimed: “So it sounds like you had a nightmare.”
The journalist then asked Karen to describe the events, who replied: “About one o’clock in the morning, I could hear some beeping and I realised the smoke detector was going off.”
John went on to recall seeing “smoke and flames” coming out of a door downstairs.
Karen said at the time: “The house is on fire, grab the kids.”
However, when the mum-of-two got to the children’s bedroom she noticed both of them had slept through the sound of the alarm.
Steph quizzed: “Were you surprised that they were asleep?”
Karen admitted: “I would have expected with the commotion and the smoke detector going off that they would have heard it but they were both fast asleep.”
She also said trying to get the youngsters out of the house and into safety was “terrifying”.
Reflecting on the story, Steph responded: “Thank God you’re alright, but clearly this has had a massive impact on you.”
Karen added: “Yeah, terrifying. You don’t ever think you’re going to wake up and your house is on fire.”
Steph continued: “And you definitely wouldn’t think your children would sleep through the smoke alarm.
“I tell you what, when you hear the family’s story it just makes you realise this could happen to any of us and it’s so important that the smoke alarms wake everyone up.”
Elsewhere, Steph received a series of sweet video messages from her BBC Breakfast colleagues before embarking on her maternity leave last week.
However, eagle-eyed viewers noticed Dan Walker, 42, was absent from the clip.
“No Dan Walker message, hope he was missed accidentally,” one person tweeted, adding: “Good luck Steph.”
Fortunately, Steph jokingly explained: “He has sent a separate one… He likes his own space,” she replied, in view of her 369,000 Twitter followers.
Watchdog airs tomorrow at 8pm on BBC One.