1 fire, 1 dead on Day 1 of prevention month

MANILA, Philippines - A girl died and a firefighter was hurt when flames engulfed a residential area in Quezon City on the first day of Fire Prevention Month.

 Nine-year-old Anna Relano died in the fire that broke out in a slum community in Barangay Tagumpay at around 4:50 a.m. yesterday.

Quezon City Fire Marshal Senior Superintendent Bobby Baruelo  said some 30 homes were gutted, rendering some 60 families homeless. The flames destroyed property valued at around P500,000.

Fire volunteer Angelito Aala, 31, was injured when he fell from a house while helping put out the flames.

The fire of still unknown cause started on the second floor of the home of Mendez Sollano. No one was home when the fire started as everyone had left for work.

Baruelo said they were still investigating the cause.

The fire reached up to the fifth alarm and was put under control at 5:55 a.m. A fire-out was declared at 6:20 a.m.

Funds for fire trucks

Meanwhile, party-list LPG Marketers Association (LPGMA) said the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) needs an additional P4.3 billion in fresh funds to be able to provide 613 municipalities their initial fire trucks.

The DILG has acquired 76 new fire trucks from Vienna at a cost of P7 million each for distribution to local governments. The purchase is funded by a soft loan from the Austrian government.

“At the estimated cost of P7 million per new fire truck, the DILG will need at least P4.3 billion, maybe more,” said LPGMA party-list Rep. Arnel Ty, who is also a Chinese-Filipino fire brigade volunteer and a member of the House public order and safety committee.

“The distribution of new fire trucks is crucially important, because it will encourage municipalities that still do not have a single fire station to start putting up one,” he said.

Ty said the Local Government Code of 1990, or Republic Act 6975, mandates the DILG to establish “at least one fire station with adequate personnel, firefighting capabilities and equipment” in every municipality nationwide. Local governments are supposed to provide the site for the station.

However, he said that more than two decades after the law’s passage, 613 out of 1,502 municipalities – or four out of every 10 – still do not have a fire station.

“Right now, in the absence of any firefighting capabilities, human lives as well as properties in these 613 municipalities are at grave risk of being lost and instantly destroyed in an accidental blaze,” Ty said, citing Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) figures.

“Once these 613 municipalities have at least one fire truck each, they can easily find land for a station. They can also readily recruit firefighters, or mobilize volunteers if the DILG is unable to create new posts for BFP personnel fast enough,” he said.

Ty is author of House Resolution 1228, urging the House committees on appropriations and local government to jointly look into the implementation of RA 6975, “to ascertain the conditions, financial or otherwise, that have prevented the DILG from establishing at least one fire station in every municipality, as required by law.”

In Cagayan Valley, or Region 2, LPGMA has contributed 18 new fire trucks to municipalities. It has also donated another 50 fire trucks in Metro Manila, mostly to Filipino-Chinese volunteer fire brigades. – Paolo Romero