PAMPANGA

Fire destroys trees

A FIRE ON Mt. Arayat destroyed P1-million worth of government reforestation project on Saturday night, an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said.

The fire razed fruit-bearing and forest trees planted in 50 hectares on the upper slopes of Mt. Arayat covering the village of San Vicente in Magalang, Pampanga, said Ricardo Calderon, DENR director in Central Luzon.

In that area, 35 hectares were contracted to the group of Peter Bengzon under the Pampanga River Basin Reforestation Project. The remaining 15 hectares were part of the Integrated Social Forestry Project for upland farmers, Calderon said on Sunday.

DENR officials have yet to determine how the fire started but Inquirer sources in Arayat and Magalang towns said it might have been due to charcoal-making, which the DENR has failed to stop for years now. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon

CAPIZ

19 houses razed

NINETEEN houses were destroyed in two fires in Roxas City on Friday and Sunday.

Fire Officer 2 Marlon B. Garbo, of the Roxas City Bureau of Fire Protection, said no one was injured in the first fire. One person, a certain Jerwin Benarao, was injured in the second fire. Felipe V. Celino, Inquirer Visayas

Live wire kills 2

TWO persons were killed by a live electric wire of the Capiz Electric Cooperative (Capelco) that had touched the branches of a tree on Sunday in Roxas City.

Police identified the victims as Andy Gemina, 24, and Emilio Sanchez, 22, from Barangay Candelaria Tapaz. Police said Gemina was in a rice field to cut a branch of the tree when it accidentally touched the Capelco live wire.

Sanchez, who was passing by, tried to help but was also electrocuted. The two died at the Tapaz District Hospital. Felipe Celino, Inquirer Visayas