Residents living near a field which caught alight in Romford have been forced to "deep clean" their houses after ash came down "like flakes".
A fire burned through two hectares of grassland near Oak Street on Wednesday (August 5), filling the surrounding residential areas with smoke and coating everything in black soot.
When the Recorder spoke to residents the following day, several were in the process of cleaning their homes and gardens - and told us they themselves had also been covered in ash after the fire.
Mum-of-two Hannaa Armed said: "That's why we're deep cleaning our entire house - we were getting ash remnants coming through the window, like black soot everywhere.
"To the point where I looked at my daughter's face and as I touched it ash was coming off onto my hand."
Hannaa explained that she was working from home on Wednesday, with her desk facing the window, when she first noticed the smoke.
She was one of 20 people who called the London Fire Brigade (LFB), before running around to the street behind to check on her elderly neighbours.
"I was like 'this is really, really bad' because when I looked out, and went down to the garden, it was just black smoke everywhere," Hannaa said.
"Honestly, I didn't know what to do. We couldn't breathe.
"The smoke was really bad that my sister's eyes were turning red, and my eyes were turning red."
Residents closest to the field were eventually told to leave their homes, and had to gather outside on the street for hours until the firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze.
Lime Close resident Bill Childs was initially not able to evacuate due to mobility issues, but later found his scooter and left the house with his partner Coral Ware.
Bill said: "It was absolutely horrible. The smoke was so thick you couldn't see anything.
"They stopped all the traffic coming up and down the road and they told everybody along here to come out.
"It was really frightening."
Coral told us that Bill's hair looked like it was covered in "black dandruff" due to the ash, which "went to dust" when she touched it.
She was reading inside when the fire started and went to investigate after smelling smoke.
READ MORE: 'Devastating' fire that tore through Harold Hill gardens was 'terrifying' experience
Coral said: "I got up and out our back door you couldn't see our garage - it was thick smoke.
"By that time it had all got in here. It [the ash] was coming down like flakes.
"Last night I went around and had to clean all the window ledges, and on the pillows you could smell the smoke.
"The bedrooms were absolutely covered with it."
Pieces of ash remained on the windowsills outside the couple's house when the Recorder spoke to them on Thursday.
The incident happened exactly a week after another grass fire on the same field, and one Oak Street resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, said she now "live[s] in fear" of the same thing happening again.
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