The best and the worst of people come out during calamities and in yesterday afternoon’s blaze in barangay Sawang Calero, the difficulty in fighting the blaze was compounded by the lack of crowd control.
More than 50 houses were estimated to have been razed. The area has very narrow roads, which made it difficult for the firemen to reach the site on time.
The fire alarm was received at 3:34 p.m., but when the fire fighters arrived, Cebu City Fire Marshal Esmael Codilla immediately called for a general alarm because most houses were made of light materials.
Duty fire investigator SFO2 Alicasim Espinola said the fire reportedly started at the house owned by Sally Pacaña, but rented by a certain Nezel Campuesta and her family.
Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire.
There are however reports that the Campuestas were arguing inside their house and somebody threatened to burn the house down.
A few minutes later, a fire broke out from the said house and immediately spread to neighboring houses.
Codilla said that they expect that the number of burned structures would be higher once they would take a closer look at the fire scene.
Lack Of Crowd Control
The San Nicolas police station sent policemen to help the barangay tanods prevent people from coming in and affecting the fire fighting operations, but the crowd was not easy to control.
There were reports that some residents even tried to grab the fire hoses from the firemen so that their houses would be prioritized.
Victims’ Tales
Many of the victims were not able to save anything aside from the clothes that they were wearing.
One of them is the neighbor of the Campuestas’ Marilyn Aniga, whose house was totally burned along with the seven personal computers in her Internet cafe, personal belongings and other appliances except from the television set she managed to grab while escaping.
Teary eyed Aniga told The Freeman that she was sleeping at the ground floor when she noticed smoke coming from the second floor of her house prompting her to shout for help.
Fire victims Victor Bartolaba and Gerry Abarquez tried to help using buckets of water, but were nearly trapped on the roof as the houses they were standing on already caught fire prompting them to leap from the roof to the ground in order to escape.
“Nangadto mi sa atop para mutabag bubo ug tubig, hapit mi natrap sa balay may gani nakabantay mi na dili na madala kay nidako naman jud ang kayo. Nanglayat nalang mi gikan sa atop,” Abarquez said.
A fire volunteer from the Filipino-Chinese Fire Brigade identified only as certain Rañola based on his name cloth sustained minor injuries and was immediately rushed to Chong Hua Hospital for medical treatment after falling from the fire ladder.
Another casualty reported was a person, who suffered a puncture wound on one of his feet.
All Units Help Out
Since the general alarm was raised, all available fire fighting units rushed to the scene.
Volunteers from the Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation, the Santo Niño Fire Volunteer Brigade, and Filpino-Chinese Fire Brigade were on the scene along with firefighters from the city and neighboring areas.
The firemen also received support from a rescue Huey helicopter of the Philippine Air Force that dropped water from a bag that hung on its skids.
Codilla said that there was low water pressure at the area due to the pipes that were yanked off as some desperate residents tried to get any source of water available to stop the blaze.
“Gipangguba nila mga tubo duol sa meter, although nakatabang na og gamay pero nakapahinay na hinuon sa atong pressure sa tubig. Dili gyud unta na nila buhaton kay makaapekto na sa atong operasyon,” Codilla explained.
SFO2 Espinola initially pegged the damage at P1.5 million. — with Princess Mondejar /NLQ