Fire guts Agusan del Norte DepEd building

INFERNO. Firemen battle the blaze that consumed the entire Department of Education (DepEd) Agusan del Norte district building Sunday evening, January 7. Investigators said the fire damaged an estimated P 5 million.

Butuan City – An initial estimate of around P5 million was lost after the entire Department of Education (DepEd) Agusan del Norte district building was razed to the ground Sunday evening, January 7.

Acting provincial fire marshal Fire Senior Inspector Rey Antonio Restauro of BFPAgusan del Norte provincial office said the cause of fire is still being investigated and said the possibility of arson is not being ruled out.

“We cannot rule out anything yet. We will look into all the angles and possible leads as well as check out eye witnesses and hopefully construct what really happened,” said Restauro.

According to eye witness outside the DepEd building, the fire started on the second floor of the building quickly spread throughout the complex at around 4 in the afternoon.

BFP records pointed out that they got the call for support at around 5:05 in the afternoon.

Restauro said the fire was brought under control by 6 in the evening and declared ‘fire out' by10 pm.

The fire alarm was raised to level 4 where in other fire stations from the towns of Buenavista and Cabadbaran City responded to the call for additional support. Together with fire stations from Butuan City, BFP as well as other volunteer fire brigades from the Chinese and Gaisano, the fire fighters were able to contain the fire from spreading to the adjacent buildings in the area.