Shannon Regulski, 16, went to bed at 3am yesterday and left five candles burning. 

She was woken by her frantic mother, Natalie, about 8.30am as the home became engulfed in smoke and flames. 

“She came in and said ‘wake up, wake up’,” Shannon said. 

“The smoke hit my eyes as soon as I woke up. 

“I didn’t have time to grab anything and my mum told me to get up and run down the hallway. 

“I sat out the front of the house with mum, crying, watching everything go up.”

Shannon said she had initially feared some people had failed to make it out, but no one was hurt in the blaze.

“I’m really thankful my mum came and woke me up,” she said. 

“If I had have breathed in that smoke, it would have kept me asleep. 

“It’s pretty scary.”

The 10 people inside the public housing home at Hibbett Crescent included Natalie and her partner, their children, and one of the children’s friends.

Ms Regulski said it was not the first time she had experienced a house fire, with an incident several years earlier. 

Several of the family’s pets were still missing yesterday. 

Wodonga firefighter David Brown said there had been several triple-0 calls about the fire, with firefighters called from Albury to assist. 

“The fire’s pretty much consumed the rear end of the house,” he said. 

“The residents were very lucky to get out. 

“Is it really worth losing your house over burning a pretty looking candle?”

Several people had tried to extinguish the fire with garden hoses without success.