TRAPPED: After being locked in the Westfield St Lukes’ Cotton On store during a fire at the mall Rose French wants both companies to take a look at their evacuation protocols.

A woman locked in a shop at Westfield St Lukes during a fire hopes lessons can be learnt from her ordeal.

The mall was evacuated when a vehicle burst into flames in the car park earlier this month.

Rose French was trying on clothes in the Cotton On store near the food court.

She'd been in the fitting room for quite a while but walked back into the shop after nobody came to help.

The shop was empty and its roller door was bolted shut.

She says the music in the store was quite loud and she hadn't heard anyone ask her to leave or an alarm.

"I thought they must have a really cruisy manager and they've just closed up.

"Then I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I can't open the door.

"Oh my god, there are no lights on and there's nobody outside'," Miss French says.

"Then I smelt smoke coming and I could hear sirens," she says.

Her thoughts quickly turned to the mall fire in Doha that killed triplets Lillie, Willsher and Jackson Weekes. Miss French started jumping around frantically and managed to catch the attention of a fire warden who tried to break down the door.

Eventually the Cotton On shop assistant was found and came back to unlock it.

Miss French says the assistant seemed oblivious to how serious the situation was and her only concern was the shop door.

"She said, ‘I hope you guys didn't buckle my door or you'll be paying for it', and then she laughed," she says.

Miss French had to go back into the shop to get her own clothes back after the mall was given the all clear.

Miss French isn't looking for anything from Westfield or Cotton On other than acceptance that the incident shouldn't have happened and proper protocol wasn't followed.

"I wasn't hurt, but what about the next people?" she says.

"It only takes one person to slip up and people can die."

Westfield New Zealand's general manager Linda Trainer says she appreciates the incident has been distressing for Miss French and the company is looking into what happened. "Westfield takes shoppers' and retailers' safety seriously. It is a primary focus of our operations," she says.

Ms Trainer says the company has regular fire drills which are audited by independent safety officers and Westfield's own risk management team.

She says fire wardens are responsible for clearing common areas but the individual shops need to make sure their customers are safely evacuated.

A Cotton On spokesperson says the company is investigating.