Angul: Three persons, including two minors, were charred to death when fire arranged to stave of biting cold spread in separate incidents in Angul, police said on Sunday.
Gobinda Behera (11) and his sister Sulochana (9) perished after being engulfed by a fire at Pallahara in Angul district last night, police said.
The two, children of Ramachandra Behera, were guarding harvested paddy in a field and occasionally warming themselves moving around a fire. Suddenly, a heap of hay stack caught fire and engulfed the entire area killing them.
In another incident, ragpicker Rama Jena (50) was charred to death while he was sleeping in a thatched house with a fire nearby as room heater at Bhanjanagar in Ganjam district today.
The fire caught polythenes he had stored and he could not escape from the burning house, police said.