PLDT warehouse fire in Cagayan burns millions worth of equipment

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – A warehouse here owned by the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company’s subsidiary, PLDT-Philcom Corporation, was gutted by fire Tuesday, destroying more than a hundred million pesos of property.

Authorities suspected the fire in PLDT’s warehouse may have been due to faulty electrical wiring or from the live batteries stocked inside the warehouse, which stored assorted supplies and telecommunications devices.

Senior Fire Officer 3 Samson Velarde, Carmen fire station commander, said they received a distress call from the company’s security guards around 4:06 a.m.

By 9:28 a.m., the fire was declared “under control,” Velarde said, estimating the structural damage at PHP5 million.

PLDT-Philcom Northern Mindanao area head Dario Vasallo said the destroyed materials and equipment inside the warehouse could reach up to P106 million.

“Most of the devices and equipment that were eaten by the flame were made of plastic materials. That’s why we are coordinating with the Bureau of Fire Protection so it can be handled the right way,” Vasallo said.

Vasallo said a portion of the company’s 20,000 subscribers in the region — about 600 of them — were affected because of the incident as electricity has to be cut off while the blaze was ongoing.

“Our instruction from the PLDT Manila office was to secure the employees,” Vasallo said, adding that most of the 80 PLDT-Philcom personnel were asked to go home.