A THREE-year-old girl was killed in a fire in Toledo City, Cebu Sunday night.

In Cebu City, a 61-year-old paralytic on her wheelchair died when a fire destroyed her home in Sitio Riverside, Barangay Lahug shortly before six last night.

Fire and Homicide investigators found the charred body of Anecita Sanchez on her wheelchair at the second floor of the two-story house damaged by the fire.

Anecita was the widow of the late Willer Sanchez who owned a barbeque stand in front of JY Square, that was stomped by Mayor Tomas Osmeña in May 1990.

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Her caretaker was in the cemetery while her daughter went to the family’s barbecue stand for an errand when the fire broke out.

In the Toledo fire, a report said a candle left lit in the altar caused the blaze that destroyed the house of Mariel Manubag’s family while she was asleep.

Mariel was inside the bamboo hut in Barangay Don Andres Soriano (DAS) at 9 p.m. when the fire started.

Police in the Toledo City substation in DAS received a call about a working fire in the house belonging to Isabelo Manubag.

When they reached the hut, members of the Toledo City Fire substation had already extinguished the blaze. All that was left of the hut were ashes.

Initial reports stated that Mariel was left inside sleeping.

She was left in the care of her grandmother Alejandra Unabia, who left the house to attend a prayer service at a neighbor’s house. Her father Arvin Manubag and her grandfather Isabelo also had to go somewhere.

Mariel’s mother Estela reportedly works in Manila.

When Alejandra returned, the house was already in flames.

A candle that had been lit at the altar was left burning and police believe this was the cause. Since the house was made of light materials, the flames quickly spread.

The alarm was received at 8:55 p.m. and was extinguished by 9:10 p.m.

She was the sixth child in Cebu to have died this year in house fires when no parent or guardian was around.

Meanwhile, the fire in Lahug, Cebu City started at the house of Nina Radan, the caretaker of the widow Anecita Sanchez, SFO1 Nilo Daculan of the Cebu City Fire Department said in his initial report.

Daculan has ruled out electrical short circuit as a cause of the fire as Radan’s house had no electricity.

Radan’s and Sanchez’s houses shared the same wall, Daculan said.

Daculan said that before the fire broke out at 5:49 p.m., Radan left Anecita in her room to go to the cemetery and left her in the care of the widow’s daughter.

But Anecita’s daughter left the house to run an errand at the family-owned barbeque stand.

When the fire broke out, several children, including Radan’s 13-year-old son, managed to run but Anecita was trapped and killed in the fire.

The fire was raised to a second alarm at 6 p.m. It was declared under control 15 minutes later.

PO2 Edario Manatad of the Homicide Section, one of the responding investigators, said Anecita’s body was taken to the nearby Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes.

Damage to property was pegged at P200,000.

On May 22, 1990, the Sanchez couple claimed that the mayor, assisted by three persons, scolded them for blocking the sidewalk with their barbecue stand outside JY Square in Lahug.

That “barbecue story” was used against Osmeña in the 2001 campaign to fuel perceptions that he is “anti-poor.”

The mayor had justified that he did it to set an example of a good leader.

But in the campaign for the May 2004 elections, one of Sanchez’s children asked Osmeña’s political foes to stop using their family in attacking the Osmeñas, who had been helping them financially.