2 boys perish in Lapu-Lapu fire

Two children, aged 2 and 3, died when their parents’ house was gutted by fire yesterday afternoon in barangay Gun-ob, Lapu-Lapu City.

Christian Joshua Maiz, 3, and his brother, Joshua Christian, 2, were found charred lying side by side in a room at the ground floor of the two-story house of the Maiz family.

The other brother, aged 10, who was at the second floor was able to get out of the house after he noticed that the ceiling was on fire.

The eldest brother, aged 13, who was left to take care of his younger brothers was in a computer shop nearby when the fire broke out.

Anthony Encarnacion, a neighbor, saw the thick smoke coming from the house and when he went to check, the fire was already at the ground floor.

He thought nobody was left in the house.

At 4:30 p.m., a fire truck arrived and controlled the fire in two minutes.

The 13-year-old told the firemen to look for his younger brothers because they were missing.

The victims were later found in a room at the ground floor of the house.

The eldest brother said the two kids were sleeping in the room at the ground floor when he left and told his 10-year-old brother to watch over them.

The victims’ father, Rodulfo, told FO3 Climaco Salisid, fire investigator of Lapu-Lapu City Fire Department that he noticed the wires in the ceiling had sparked days prior to the incident.

Salisid concluded that the fire was caused by electrical short circuit.

Wilma, the mother of the victims who works at a canteen in Shangri-la Mactan was shocked upon learning of her two sons’ untimely end.

Rodulfo, a carpenter was at work when the incident happened.

Fire investigators pegged the structural damage at P30,000.