Nice, woodanders.
"That's a dumb question, Miss Glenn’s Organ."

I added that ET doll under movie connections for Threads on the IMDb.
You've seen Guy Standeven in something because the man was in everything.

That was probably the goal. Barry Hines seems to like that sort of thing. There's a similar red herring in his film The Price of Coal, which makes you fear for the worst.

Poor Michael. He was really look forwarding to being commander of their bomb shelter.
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep."

I guess it was the kid Michael's toy, meant to imply HE was burning without actually showing it.
Clever, but it didn't work since the image was so confusing.

Years before DVD and stuff, even when videos and hence the Pause button were a dream, I always thought that was a person burning up. I was quite disappointed to discover it was ET.

A lot of toys caught fire that day. E.T. dolls were popular in the 1980s. Ten days after the attack there was a survivor sitting in the ruins with what looked like a set of Star Wars figures. I'm guessing they belonged to the survivor's dead son.