Midnight fire razes 38 houses

CEBU, Philippines - Residents in Banilad, Mandaue City was roused from sleep by a late night fire which destroyed a total of 38 houses and ate up close to P350,000 worth of property.

Senior Fire Officer 2 Roy Garcia of the Mandaue City Fire Department said all 38 houses in sitio Vito, Remedios Street were totally burned down.

The fire department received the report at 11:53 pm. They raised the incident to the third alarm.

Firemen in Mandaue City, assisted by firefighters from the nearby Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu City, Consolacion town and the Cebu Filipino-Chinese Volunteers Brigade along with Barangay Apas Emergency Rescue Team and the Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation responded to the fire alarm.

The fire was controlled in 20 minutes. A total “fire out” was declared an hour later, which means that the fire can no longer spread to other structures.

No one was injured in the fire. Based on the initial investigation, Garcia said the fire started from a spark emitted by an electrical post.

According to the residents, the said post had always been emitting fire owing to its string of electrical wires, which firemen constantly responded to.

Garcia said it was only this time that the fire the post emitted spread to the nearby house owned by Imelda Sarabosing. The house was made of light materials which are highly combustible.

The fire ate up Sarabosing’s house and immediately spread to other houses which were also mostly made of light materials.

Fortunately, no one was injured as everyone was alerted to the fire, Garcia said.

Firemen did not have a hard time controlling the fire as the houses were situated along the barangay road.

The displaced families temporarily put up tents near the area.

The Mandaue City government extended food provisions and other forms of assistance through the Mandaue City Social Welfare Office personnel who coordinated with barangay officials. (FREEMAN)