ILOILO City – Fire totally gutted six houses and partially damaged three more in Zone 1, Barangay Concepcion, City Proper yesterday morning.
The fire started at around 8:55 a.m.
One person was slightly injured while two others complained of difficulty breathing because of the thick smoke, according to Fire Officer 3 Judz Romaquin of the Bureau of Fire Protection.
The fire started in the house of Norceli Tan Rapio, initial investigation showed, and this quickly spread to neighboring houses.
Rapio’s house was a boardinghouse and so were most of the other fire-hit houses. All were made of light materials.
Rapio’s house was totally gutted and those of Nida Macabantad, Leny Olimpo, Pafeth Espinosa, Wilmer Diel, and Ernesto Provido.
The partially damaged houses were owned by Lilian Velez, Roman Provido and Rina Fuerte.
It took firefighters over an hour to put out the fire, said Romaquin.
As of this writing the BFP had not yet released an estimate of the damaged properties. But probers believed the fire may have been caused by an unattended lighted candle.
Rapio told investigators a boarder had a candle on Saturday.
Rapio said her house had no electricity for two months already and her boarders were using candles./PN
