Five fire crews and an emergency response unit descended on a Donington cul-de-sac to a flat on fire on Monday evening.
They were called to Arnhem Way at around 6.45pm to the fire that was mainly confined to a living-room cupboard.
The flat is being rented by a 28-year-old man who wasn’t in at the time and whose mum was at the shops when the blaze started. Neither wish to be identified.
The mum said: “I came back from the shops to see the smoke coming from the cupboard, it was very scary.
“It was mostly just clothes that were destroyed, but there were some photos from when my son was young that have gone.”
Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue have given the official cause for the blaze as ‘Carelessly discarded smoking materials’.
The mum though said: “I don’t know what could have caused it. We do both smoke but never in the flat itself and I hadn’t even been in the cupboard.”
