BACOLOD CITY -- A fire swept through a residential building as people slept in a slum community in this city on Monday, killing 16 residents, including an 11-month-old baby.

The fire started before dawn Monday and rapidly spread because of strong winds, gutting the wooden two-storey apartment building and more than 60 nearby shanties in Barangay 19, said Fire Marshal Pamela Rojane Candido.

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Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) reported that the fire occurred at 1:19 Monday.

Several people leapt from windows at the height of the fire but others failed to wake up in time to save themselves, Candido said.

"Some mothers perished with their children," Candido told The Associated Press. "It was really tragic."

Dionisio Nino, a 46-year-old market vendor, wept as firefighters brought out the charred bodies of his wife, two children and a grandchild who were trapped by the blaze in their second-floor room.

"I jumped out of the window to get help but I couldn't get back in later because the fire spread quickly everywhere," Nino told reporters.

The building housed impoverished families, which included men and women who worked as vendors in a nearby public market, officials said.

City Hall officials said the owner of the burnt apartment building, Margie Depakibo, has no permit to operate a boarding house business.

Relatives have identified all the dead, who were placed in black bags and lined up side by side in a clearing near the still-smoldering slum community.

An investigation was under way to determine the cause of the fire that started on the ground floor. Officials said the fire was contained at 2:40 a.m.

Fire officials initially pegged the damage to properties at P4 million.

Witnesses told investigators that the fire may have been sparked by candles lit by a tenant who failed to pay her electric bill, village leader Jocelyn Uychiat said.

Gloria Ecabag, a resident who suffered severe burn injuries, confirmed Uychiat's statement. She was confined at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital for treatment.

Sixty-four families, from the 60 houses gutted by the fire, are now staying at evacuation centers provided by Bacolod City Representative Monico Puentevella, the Department of Social Services and Development (DSSD) said.

"This is the worst residential fire in Bacolod City," said City Mayor Evelio Leonardia.

In Malacañang, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo extended her sympathy to the families affected by the fire.

"The President is extending her deepest sympathies and condolences to the families who died in Bacolod City," deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez said Monday.

Golez, who hails from Bacolod, described the tragedy as the worst in the city.

He said immediate assistance was given to the victims through the local government unit, adding that the city disaster coordinating council has convened to find ways and means of providing relief and assistance to the victims.

Bacolod is in Negros island, an impoverished, sugar-producing region about 340 miles (550 kilometers) south of Manila.

On Monday afternoon, 4,000 shanties were also razed to the ground in Barangay Poblacion in Kalibo, the capital of Aklan province, leaving 2,000 people homeless.

According to Fire Inspector Patricio Collado, the fire started at 2 p.m. on C. Laserna Street and quickly spread in a slum community.

The fire victims temporarily stayed at Agusto D. Legaspi Sports Complex. (AP/GMD of Sun.Star Bacolod/Jill Beltran/Sunnex)