Unattended candle causes girl’s death, fifty houses razed
A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl died when at least 50 houses were razed by a huge fire at Purok 5, Mini-Forest, Barangay 23-C, just before the stroke of midnight on Tuesday.
In an interview on Wednesday, senior Fire Inspector Ramil Gillado, the Davao City Fire District spokesperson, said the girl was the daughter in the house where the fire started.
“Injured nato nga bata kaganinang 7:24 am na declare siya na namatay sa SPMC burn center (The girl was already injured but expired at the SPMC burn center,” Gillado said.
Firefighters were on the scene minutes after receiving the report as traffic was light. But the huge fire, dense houses, and narrow streets made it difficult to contain the flames.
They finally declared a fire-out at 2:42 a.m.
Based on the investigation, the cause of the fire was an unattended lighted candle.
“As per info, murag tulog ning bata kay 11:55 (p.m.) man na report ang incident, unya matod pa kay during sa incident kay naa daw sa gawas sa ilang balay ang mama ug papa (The girl was sleeping since the incident was reported at 11:55 p.m. Her parents were also not in the house during the fire),” he added.
Accordingly, their electricity got cut off for non-payment, so they had to use candles in their house.
