LUCENA CITY, Philippines--A man died and at least 12 families here were rendered homeless as fire destroyed a house Monday.

The fire, believed caused by a busted TV set, started at about 1:25 p.m. and gutted the old house of the Nosce Clan on Hermana Fausta Street corner Granja in Barangay Uno.

Police identified the dead man as Wilfredo Labay, 58, whose body was found by firemen in one of the bedrooms on the second floor.

One of the fire victims, Christopher Laod, 15, whose family was living on the second floor, said Labay was sleeping in one of the second floor bedrooms.

Laod ruled out firecrackers as the possible cause of the blaze.

"There were no firecrackers upstairs," he told police investigators.

Laod said the loud bang came from the TV set. It was followed by a spark, he said, that started the fire.

The Nosce's wooden house was considered one of the oldest in the city.

According to village chairman Aying Lavarez, all the families residing in the burned house were relatives.

In 2004, a deadly fire occurred here on New Year's Eve leaving 15 people dead and millions of pesos worth of pieces of property destroyed.

The 2004 blaze was triggered when a vendor lit up a firecracker to test his merchandise but instead of shooting up, the rocket accidentally landed on a pile of pyrotechnics inside a store near the public market.

The rocket set off a massive explosion that caused the fire.

In Cavite, police arrested a man who allegedly started a 30-minute fire which razed several firecracker stalls and damaged a public market in Rosario town early morning Monday.

Supt. Edgardo Roquero, Rosario police chief, identified the arrested suspect as Albert Espinosa, 31.

Roquero said they arrested Espinosa after an 8-year-old girl identified him as the one who threw a lighted cigarette at one of the stores selling firecrackers.