Senior dies in fire
Dawn fire in Tejero hits warehouse with 20T cooking oil barrels
Flames trapped Natividad Cabalan, 80, in her home in Barangay Apas during a fire that destroyed at least 60 houses yesterday afternoon Damage so far from 3 fires since Friday: 531 houses and 1 warehouse struck, nearly P12M worth of property lost, almost 3,000 persons homeless
ABLIND woman died and about P12 million worth of property were lost in three fires that hit Cebu City in just a span of four days.
At 3:47 a.m. yesterday, a fire hit a cooking oil warehouse in Barangay Tejero. Firefighters who tried to save the Lim Kit Kai Manufacturing storage building had to blast water on some gasoline tankers that were parked right beside the fire scene.
The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) 7 placed the fire under control—meaning it could no longer spread—at 4:07 a.m. and
declared a “fire out” at 8:30 a.m.
In an initial investigation, SFO2 Dionesio Regasa learned from security guard Ponciano Milana that the fire started in the center of the warehouse.
Before he saw the fire, he heard a popping sound in the warehouse and after five minutes, the blaze started consuming some barrels of cooking oil.
There were an estimated 20,000 barrels of cooking oil inside the warehouse during the fire. Damage to property was pegged at P10 million.
Investigators still have to confirm what started the fire.
Trapped
In the second fire that hit Cebu City yesterday, a blind woman died after she got trapped inside her room in Sitio CRCI, Archbishop Reyes Avenue, Barangay Apas.
Natividad Cabalan, 80, didn’t manage to make it out of her house.
The BFP 7 received the call for help at 2:26 p.m. and firefighters had the blaze under control at 2:55 p.m.
A total of 60 houses burned down in the fire that hit a residential area.
According to Cebu City Fire Marshall Rogelio Bongabong Jr., property damage reached at least P500,000.
The fire allegedly start- ed at the house of Gemma Balatong, whom the BFP will invite for questioning.
Bongabong also said, though, that a neighbor who was reportedly cooking may have accidentally caused the blaze.
Late last Thursday until Friday morning, a fire spread across parts of six sitios in Barangay DuljoFatima.
Authorities pegged the damage at P1.5 million.
The fire burned 427 houses and damaged 44 others. Of the survivors, 401 families had rented houses, while 270 owned homes, for a total of 671 families.
At least 2,752 individuals have been recorded as survivors of that fire.