Her daughter, Matilda, suffered serious burns in the trick-or-treating accident last year.
The little girl was dressed in a witch’s costume that Winkleman had bought from a supermarket. The material is understood to have caught on a candle inside a Halloween pumpkin.
Winkleman, the co-host of Strictly Come Dancing, spoke to BBC One’s Watchdog programme to warn parents about the dangers of flammable fancy dress costumes, as the surgeon who treated Matilda warned of a “mini-epidemic” of similar accidents each Halloween.
In the interview, Winkleman said of the October 31 accident: “I live in a square where all the kids get dressed up and we go around the square trick-or-treating.
“I bought her costume from a supermarket. She wanted to go as a witch so she had a witch’s hat and a cape and some stripy tights and a sort of long, flowy skirt thing.”
The accident took place at the third house the group visited in west London. Winkleman recalled: “I was talking to somebody… and then I heard her shout and she was on fire.
“It feels like she was on fire for hours, but the surgeon said that it definitely wasn’t the case and it was probably just seconds.
“She went up, is the only way I know how to describe it. It was a spark and she screamed out to me.
“It was like those horrific birthday candles that you blow out and then they come back. It was really fast, it wasn’t fire like I’d seen.”
Matilda was rushed to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital where she underwent surgery.
Asked by the Watchdog presenter, Chris Hollins, if the experience had been life-changing, Winkleman replied: “It is life-changing, but not life-defining. It was definitely life-changing for me.
“I can’t remember life before it. I wish I had been dressed as the witch, is mainly all I wish, that it had happened to me… she went up, and I don’t want that to happen to another child.
“I would like parents – just on Halloween – to think about what they’re going to put their kids in because I didn’t, and it cost us.”
Jorge Leon-Vallapalos, the paediatric plastic surgeon who treated Matilda, said: There is no doubt that we continue seeing a mini-epidemic in certain periods of the year with these injuries.
“If you take into consideration that in any child, the thickness of the skin is much less than in any adult, you will need a much less amount of thermal injury over a reduced period of time to cause a larger amount of damage.”
Winkleman and her husband, Kris Thykier, also have two sons, Jake and Arthur. She has previously said that Matilda faced “a long road to recovery” but praised the “kindness and brilliance” of the NHS staff who treated her.
A family friend said last night: “Matilda is a brave, brilliant girl. She is doing really well and getting better all the time, in large part because of the fantastic care she received at the time.”
A neighbour, Jamie Poulton, suffered second-degree burns when he attempted to put out Matilda’s flames with his bare hands.
Mr Poulton, who was taking his two daughters on the same trick-or-treat adventure, has told how the flames repeatedly re-ignited when he extinguished them.
Children’s fancy dress costumes must comply with minimum fire resistance standards, but the Watchdog programme will claim that safety testing is not stringent.
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