A burning candle left in the attic of a house was found to be attributable to Wednesday's fire in Xiamen, which claimed four lives and left two people injured, police said.

The fire broke out at about 3:00 a.m. inside a wooden residential building on Zhongshan Road, home to seven households with 20 people. The police found that a 67-year-old man named WangJiali forgot to blow out the candle after he came back from the toilet at about 2:00 a.m. There was no electric light in the attic.

About an hour later, Wang found that his table caught fire. He tried to put out the fire with a quilt but failed. Wang alerted the neighbors, but they could not keep the fire from spreading.

The fire was put out an hour later by firemen.

The four victims, three old people and one child, died of suffocation, police said.

Source: Xinhua