ILOILO City – Two successive fires hit Dumangas, Iloilo and Jaro district here yesterday.
An estimated P9.5-million worth of property went up in smoke in Dumangas. Fire hit the municipality’s public market at around 6:46 a.m.
The fire started at a beauty salon at the second floor of the market and quickly spread, according to Senior Fire Officer 4 Antonio Patiño Jr., head of the Dumangas Fire Station.
Nineteen market stalls were totally damaged; four were partially burned.
As of this writing, investigation was still ongoing to determine what caused the fire.
“As of now we could not conclude,” Patiño said, but he theorized it could be due to electrical short circuit or an unattended candle.
Fire trucks from neighboring towns helped put out the blaze.
A fire out was declared at around 10:41 a.m.
Dumangas’ Mayor Ronaldo Golez said the local government will help the fire victims. Yesterday he ordered his local government’s engineering personnel to look for an area where displaced market vendors could temporarily do business.
Golez said this was the second time the Dumangas public market was razed by fire; the first time was five years ago.
Some 20 minutes after the fire ended in Dumangas, another one hit a neighborhood at LJ Ledesma Subdivision, Barangay Buhang, Jaro, Iloilo City at around 11 a.m.
A house was total gutted while two others were partially damaged.
There were no reported casualties or injuries in the two fire cases./PN
