🚨 NEIGHBORS IN KINGSTON, SOUTH OF BRISBANE, HEARD ...

🚨 NEIGHBORS IN KINGSTON, SOUTH OF BRISBANE, HEARD DESPERATE SCREAMS AS FLAMES ENGULFED A FAMILY HOME… NOW, WHAT THEY WITNESSED IS LEAVING MANY SHAKEN

A husband has broken down in tears, saying he regrets not running back inside to his likely death to try again to save his wife from a fire that ripped through a home south of Brisbane.

Leanne Laver, 63, and family friend Phillip Gordon, 73, were killed when the two-storey Queenslander in the Logan suburb of Kingston suddenly went up in flames on Tuesday afternoon.

Leanne Laver, 63, and Phillip Gordon, 73, were killed in the blaze. Supplied

Sean “Ari” Laver, his two children and one more person in the house managed to escape but it was too much for Leanne, who seemed to be on the comeback from cancer, and Gordon.

Ari said he tried to guide his wife to safety but her limited mobility made it more difficult for her to escape.

“I ran back out and I tried to run back up those front stairs, the flames were just coming out from under the stairs,” he said, tears dripping from his face.

“ … I failed her. I should have gone back. I knew it was death. I should have gone back anyway.”

He said Gordon, his lifelong friend, went back into the house “not thinking about himself” to try to save some cats but couldn’t make it back out.

“If you have a fire, just grab your loved ones and run,” Ari said.

Ari tearfully described his wife as “the most faithful, loving and selfless person”.

Sean “Ari” Laver tearfully described his wife, Leanne Laver, as “the most faithful, loving and selfless person”. 9News

“I’m not feeling anything except [that] I should have died with my wife, and what am I going to do for my kids? That’s all that’s going through my head,” he said.

Ari said his wife suffered from cancer, but that they had received positive health news and thought they were on the path of recovery.

“My wife didn’t deserve that. She’d been battling stage four lymphoma, we’d just had good reports, we thought we were on the right route,” he said.

The pair had been together for 42 years and living at the home for more than 35 years.

Emergency services respond to a fatal fire in Kingston. 9News

Neighbours described hearing screams as flames took hold of the Logan household in minutes on Tuesday afternoon.

Ari said he suspected an electrical fault on the ground floor could have sparked the blaze.

Police are still investigating how the fire started. They suspect it was at the back of the property where Ari had been playing video games.

With no insurance, he says he has no idea how they’ll even begin to put their lives back together. The community is rallying hard, raising money to help.

Sean “Ari” Laver revealed his wife was battling cancer, but had recently received positive health news. Today

Neighbour Tiffany Tinker saw flames engulfing the house next door.

“[There were] obviously just yells of panic and upset that the neighbours in a house was going up in flames,” she said.
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“And we’re all just yelling to make sure that, ‘Is there anybody inside? Is everybody OK?’”

The blaze spread rapidly through the property, with firefighters turning their attention to protecting neighbouring homes.

Police established an exclusion zone, shutting down multiple streets and urging the public to stay indoors.

The fire left little untouched, reducing five vehicles on the property to burnt-out shells.

SOURCE: https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/qld/logan-fire-mother-and-family-friend-killed-in-raging-kingston-house-fire-south-of-brisbane-20260721-p60hcn.html