Mayor: Keep power on for kids

The father of one of the
children was the only
survivor.

TOLEDO (AP) — The deaths of three children and their mother in a house fire started by a candle has prompted the city’s mayor to ask a utility to stop shutting off power to homes where children live during cold weather.

The family used the candle to see inside their rental home Wednesday night because the electricity was turned off earlier in the day.

The utility, Toledo Edison, cut off the power because the family had been living there at least since October without putting the service in their name, said Richard Wilkins, a spokesman for the utility, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp.

The company earlier had warned the family it was in danger of losing their electricity, he said. On the day of the fire, the utility gave them information about groups that could help if they couldn’t afford their electricity.

“They could’ve been turned back on within a few hours,” Wilkins said Friday. “We had no idea who was living there.”

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, in a letter sent to Toledo Edison on Thursday, said it didn’t matter that there was confusion about the transfer of the account.

“Three young children and a mother are dead in a residence where there was no electricity,” he wrote.

Shutting off somebody’s service is a last resort, Wilkins said.

The company doesn’t plan to change its procedures because there are enough programs to help people who can’t pay their electric bills, he said.

“If they say ’we have kids, kids who are sick, we can’t buy food,’ we’re not going to shut that customer off,” Wilkins said.

The National Fire Protection Association says candle fires increase during December and January when families use candles during power outages and for holiday decorating.

About one in every four deadly candle fires in the home happened when power had been shut off, the association said in a 2004 report.

Anthony Diaz, father of one of the victims, told investigators they were using a candle in the living room because the electricity had been shut off.

He was the only person inside the house who escaped. He said he and his girlfriend and the children fell asleep while the candle still burned.

Deputy Fire Chief Luis Santiago said the fire was burning quite awhile before Diaz woke up and ran out of the house. Investigators found no evidence of smoke detectors, Santiago said, but Diaz told investigators there were two.

Toledo’s mayor also ordered city departments on Thursday to help the fire department make sure all homes have a working smoke detector.

Diaz’s son, 4-year-old Ivan Diaz, who had recently finished chemotherapy treatments for cancer, died in the fire.

Also killed were Michelle Crawford, 29; and her two daughters, Yaniela Crawford, 11, and Victoria Crawford, 7.