DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines – Four women were trapped to death in a pre-dawn fire Saturday that razed a boarding house in the city’s Barangay (village) Camanjac, police said.

Police Officer 3 Florito Fajardo, desk investigator of the Dumaguete City Police Office, identified the fatalities as the sisters Sarah Jane Resando, 19, and Melissa Resando, 23, of Labason, Zamboanga del Norte; Joan Ortega, 31, of Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay; and Maricar Araneta, 22, of Alicia, Zamboanga Sibugay.

Their bodies were found huddled in the bathroom of the boarding house, owned by Ramoncito Remata of Purok Al Capone, Lower Camanjac.

The fire was recorded at 3:36 a.m. of Saturday, the police said.

“Melissa was holding Sarah and the two other women in her arms, as if to protect them from the fire,” a witness who was among those who found the bodies of the four women told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The fire was preceded by a brownout caused by a sudden downpour, which started Friday night.

Fajardo said the fire was probably caused by a lighted candle placed atop a plastic table in the living room of the house.

“They must have fallen asleep to awaken only when the fire got so big,” Fajardo said.

They were apparently trapped because the windows of the house had steel grills.

Hadji Macajis, 26, a native of Siquijor who survived the fire, told police that he and the rest of the victims were lodgers in the Remata house, Fajardo said.

Our condolences to family and friends of the victims.

Source : http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20100529-272729/4-women-die-in-Dumaguete-fire