Groups of children stopped by a house in the 1200 block of Hilltop Drive in Cape St. Claire yesterday afternoon to leave flowers and cards on the doorstep in memory of a 12-year-old girl who was killed in a fire shortly after midnight.

Heather Noll, a friend and neighbor, was looking through a pile of charred furniture and belongings in the front yard for a book of sketches drawn by the victim, Danielle Francesca Sheats.

"It's all we have to remember her," said Heather, 13, who met Danielle about a year ago when she moved to the street with her mother.

Danielle was killed in a fire that investigators think was started by a candle in the first-floor family room of the two-story house, said a spokesman for Anne Arundel County Fire/EMS/Rescue.

George Michael Martin, 33, the owner of the house, suffered serious burns when he tried to rescue Danielle, said Battalion Chief John Scholz. Martin was in critical condition at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center yesterday afternoon.

Martin and Danielle's mother, Carol E. Sheats, 32, were outside the house and conscious when firefighters arrived shortly after midnight, Scholz said. Firefighters found the girl in the family room, and she was pronounced dead at the scene, he said.

Sheats was in fair condition yesterday at Johns Hopkins Bayview.

Donald Bates and David Ross, Cape St. Claire firefighters, were burned when they searched the house for the girl. They were treated at Anne Arundel Medical Center and released, Scholz said.

It took firefighters half an hour to bring the fire under control, Scholz said.

Pub Date: 12/15/98