THE Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) in Davao Region reported that from January to November 2019, a total of 439 fire incidents have been recorded in Davao City, with an estimated damage of P73 million and with five fatalities.
Senior Fire Officer 2 Ramil Gillado, Investigation Section chief of BFP-Davao, said during a press briefing Wednesday, December 4, at The Royal Mandaya Hotel that of the 439, 20 are "major" fire incidents.
Last October, a student in Calinan died after her creative costume caught fire during the Bansag's Mister and Miss Intramurals. She suffered major burns.
Gillado said the top three types of fire incidents are residential, grass, and rubbish fire.
Based on their data, this year's fire incidents rose from 422 in 2018.
However, in terms of damage, it went down as compared to last year's P127 million.
"Ang factor natin kung bakit bumaba yong involved natin is mostly [pag] may mga structure na involved pagdating sa tropa natin under control agad, so meaning naging effective 'yong kino-conduct natin na lectures and seminars sa mga communities na during sa fire incident hindi lang sila tumitingin, nagre-respond na sila. Alam na nila ang ginagawa nila," Gillado said.
BFP's implementation of Oplan Ligtas Pamayanan (OLP) program, which seeks to empower the communities to be disaster-resilient, has also been helpful in fire prevention.
Part of the program was the deployment of their personnel on the ground to conduct a training program on raising awareness about fire and help the barangay make a mapping of their area, and identify fire-prone areas and sight possible problems that might be encountered in the future like narrow streets and lack of water hydrants for better planning.
"For the implementation [nag] start [ito] last January. Nagkaroon tayo ng orientation sa lahat ng regional director then binaba sa fire stations nationwide [at] nagkaroon na ng full implementation sa ating programs to address fire incident involving residential," Gillado said.
He also observed that most of those involved in the residential fire are those areas where informal settlers reside with electrical-related as the top cause.
Meanwhile, Gillado said that since September, they have not recorded any fire incident that involved Christmas lights and other decorations. The last incident that involved Christmas decors was in 2013.
"From 2014 to present, wala tayong recorded fire incident na structures involving Christmas lights or Christmas décor," Gillado said.