John Pezzin was woken by his wife just after midnight when she smelled smoke inside their Harborne St home in the Melbourne suburb of Macleod. She had woken to feed their baby son and alerted her husband, who searched the weatherboard home before going outside to find flames licking the floor underneath the rear of the home, the Herald Sun reports.

Mr Pezzin said he was unsure what was going on at first because he could not find the source of the fire immediately. "One thing led to another and I walked outside around the back of the house and the house was engulfed in flames, so quickly ran inside - thank God - and ran out of the house," he said.He said he grabbed his wife and sons, aged 6, 3 and 7 months, and ran to the neighbours. The rear of the house was nearly destroyed and the remainder was affected by heat, smoke and water, firefighters said.

He said it was lucky his wife had smelled the smoke early as they may not have been so lucky if they had been woken when smoke detectors went off. "I feel that if we had been woken by the smoke detectors it could have been a different story because (the smoke) was very thick and dark," he said. "I know where the kids are and I could find them with my eyes shut, but you never know what happens.

"If one of the kids got up to see what was going on they may not have been in their room, they may have been around the back."Mr Pezzin said the family was devastated and all the kids' Christmas gifts had been lost in the fire. "It's OK - it is a house. We have got our kids out. That's the main thing. Everything else is incidental really," he said. "If we can get one or two gifts it will keep them happy."