Fire kills 6 in Santiago City

SANTIAGO CITY — Six members of a family died in apparent suffocation after their house was gutted by fire at the Greenland Subdivision in Plaridel village here on Tuesday morning, fire investigators said.

The victims were identified as couple Kim and Love James, both 35, and their children, Raven, 5, and Keisha, 3, and their nephews Zedrick Lloyd Marcelino, 16, and Mark Melbourne Marcelino, 13.

The parents of the Marcelino brothers were in Metro Manila when the fire gutted their house, said Senior Fire Officer 1 Alberto Timbal, chief investigator of the Bureau of Fire Protection here.

Timbal said the victims died from suffocation as they only suffered minor burns.

“The occupants failed to open the padlock of the back door. Because the house has a firewall, the fire did not spread to nearby houses,” said Timbal.

Investigators were looking into faulty electrical wiring as the cause of the fire./lzb