A FIRE that broke out yesterday afternoon in Barangay Mantu-yong, Mandaue City raged for close to four hours and leapt to neighboring barangay Guizo.
A 37-year-old man died as he was trapped while trying to save some belongings. Three firemen and a teenager were injured in the blaze that started about 3:45 p.m.
Mandaue City Fire Marshal Oscar Mayol said in an interview last night that they have yet to tally the number of houses burned and determine the damage estimate and what caused the fire.
City Councilor Carlo Pontico Fortuna, who lives in Mantuyong, said more than a thousand homes were destroyed.
It was the fourth fire in Mandaue since the start of Fire Prevention Month.
Jose Araneta, 37, single, went back inside his house and did not come out despite the shouts of his mother, 62-year-old mother Lina Araneta.
Araneta told Sun.Star Cebu that they later found the charred body of her son inside their burned house.
Richard Estenzo, 16, SFO2 Ramonito Abot, FO2 John Herejano of the Mandaue City Fire Department and a fireman from Cebu City were injured.
Estenzo had a big cut in his right foot after he slipped into an eight-foot high edge of a creek as he ran. Abot, a regional BFP officer, suffered a burned left forearm.
Fortuna said Mantuyong is the most densely populated area in the city as it was a shoreline community before the sea was reclaimed.
He arrived at the height of the blaze. Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano, who just arrived from Manila, also went to the area.
Ouano said the city disaster coordinating council will convene to address the needs of the fire victims.
The mayor plans to use the Mandaue City Comprehensive National High School, the Tipolo National High School and Guizo National High School and the property that used to be Norkis display center in Barangay Looc as temporary shelters for the families left homeless.
Fire trucks from as far as the towns of Compostela, Liloan and Talisay City battled the blaze on the ground as Philippine Air Force rescue helicopter scooped water from the sea and doused the flames.
Fire trucks from the Cebu Filipino-Chinese Fire volunteers, Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation and Cebu city also assisted.
Mayol said it took them three hours and 45 minutes to put the blaze under control.
The fire started in a house in Sitio Asinan at the back of the former slaughterhouse in Mantuyong. Then it spread to houses beside the creek in Sitio La Purisima at the back of Cebu International Convention Center.
The houses were mostly made of light materials.
The firefighters, who were training their hoses on the houses, had to back away from the huge flames as the fire moved toward the Guizo barangay hall.
Fortuna said the firefighters prevented the blaze from jumping across the street, where the barangay hall is.
The mayor initially suggested to use heavy equipment to level some houses along the fire’s path to prevent it from spreading.
But the City-owned payloader got stuck in the mud in Sitio Sta. Cruz on its way to Sitio La Purisima, said Guizo barangay councilor Eric Quinain.
The City-owned bulldozer followed but city officials decided to abort the plan.
Ouano said it was, so far, the biggest blaze that hit Mandaue this fire prevention month.
A dawn fire last Jan. 30, 2002 wiped out the whole public market and damaged a portion of the nearby St. Joseph’s Academy and the National Shrine of St. Joseph.
Some 1,200 market stallholders were displaced and left around 3,000 elementary students without classrooms. Initial estimates placed property damage at P50 million for the market, excluding the lost goods, and P20 million for the school.
