Saturday, February 03, 2007 Tomas may help fire dept.; Mike scouts for equipment
SEEING the need to improve firefighting here, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday said he is willing to have the fire department placed under the City Government.
He said that if the City has the money, he will agree to making the office another City Hall department.
He said that when his father was mayor in 1971, the fire department had better equipment, including a fire ladder, compared with what it has today.
Vice Mayor Michael Rama said last Thursday that he will go to Manila to ask Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) national officials to provide better equipment to Cebu City.
Although the fire department has two fire ladders, they were defective and could not be used in last Thursday’s fire that gutted 17 commercial establishments.
Rama said he will likely go to Manila two weeks from now, when he has another business to attend to there.
Although fire investigators have not yet concluded their probe, they found indications that an electrical short circuit caused the blaze that razed an entire block in downtown Cebu Thursday dawn.
Chief investigator Allan Arciaga said that the first firemen who arrived at the scene saw the flames crawl on the electric wire and then spread to the second floor of the Cebu Classic Guitar on Lincoln and Manalili Sts.
They have witnesses who could corroborate the statements of the firemen.
As to the presence of pyrotechnics on the second floor, Arciaga admitted they have yet to establish this because they were not able to find proof.
However, firefighters and witnesses said they heard explosions that sounded like firecrackers when the blaze burned the building’s second floor.
He said he has sent SPO3 Felix Romero back to the area to locate the occupant, reportedly a Taiwanese, to get his statement and clarifications.
Asked if the occupant could face a charge for keeping firecrackers without a permit, Arciaga said it was too early to say.
He explained they needed to get more statements before they can conclude anything.
For now, the damage estimate is still placed at P3 million although Arciaga said none of the victims have appeared at their office to make their claims yet.
Cebu City Fire Marshal Esmael Codilla said an electrical short circuit can be caused by defective wires or an overload of the transformer.
Codilla said building owners should make it a point to have their electrical wires checked periodically, especially those in old buildings so they can spot defective connections before accidents happen.
Overloads
Overloads also happen if the occupants’ power use is more than the capacity of the lines.
He said that it could take a week before they can declare the area safe, saying the fire keeps rekindling and his men have to be watching over the place constantly.
Codilla added that his men were not able to sleep because they wanted to make sure the fire did not rekindle during the night.
Mayor Osmeña said that if the fire department is placed under City Hall, he will have Emergency Rescue Unit (Eruf) and the Cebu Filipino-Chinese Volunteer Fire Brigade run it.
“Walay Eruf, Chinese brigade, hurot na ang syudad,” he said, adding that the two organizations have the talent and discipline to take charge.
What’s wrong
Osmeña said that while the fire department has a “good chief,” referring to Codilla, something is wrong with the organization.
He cited one fire in 2001 when he was told by a fireman that they cannot use full pressure in spraying water because they were still waiting for the super tankers to get back from Parian, where they get water from a tank.
He wondered what happened to five other water tanks strategically built in different parts of the city during the time of his father, and was told by the fire chief who later arrived that they were not operational.
“And you know what it took the City to repair all five tanks? P12,000. We are dealing with that kind of fire department,” he said.
He admitted firefighting units are expensive, as a modern 10-story fire ladder costs $1 million, while a 20-story ladder is priced at $2.5 million.
“Eventually, we have to (buy them),” he said. (RHM/MEA)
