5 days, 4 ‘attacks’ to fight Gaisano fire

It took five days to completely douse the fire that ate up the Gaisano Capital South mall in downtown Cebu City.

Cebu City Fire Marshal Aderson Comar declared a “total fire out” at 5:03 a.m. yesterday as his men pulled out of the area.

He described  step by step how his men attacked the Dec. 23 blaze and the difficulties they faced, including an almost four-hour delay to enter the building because security guards were afraid of looting.

The fire alarm was received at 12:42 a.m. Firemen arrived three minutes later.

Two security guards were on duty.  They wouldn’t allow Comar’s men to enter the mall’s main entrance on Colon Street.

The guards feared they would be held liable if looting occurred, said Comar, who offered to let any Gaisano representative put on protective gear and accompany them inside.  Nobody took up the offer.

Comar said his men’s  “first attack” focused on  the receiving area at  the ground floor  where smoke was first seen by security guards.

It took 8 to 10 minutes to make a “forcible entry” from Leon Kilat Street.   No guards stopped them from destroying the roll-up doors and iron railings there, he said. But once they entered the receiving area, they couldn’t penetrate the site because the smoke was “very thick”.

Three other attempts were made.

When volunteers of the Filipino-Chinese Fire Brigade arrived, they made a “second attack” to break in the  mall’s west entrance in Leon Kilat Street.

“We focused on the first and second attempt to put down the fire,” Comar said.

The “third attack” was made with Emergency Response Unit Foundation (ERUF) fire volunteers.  They opened the mall’s main gate “for ventilation” to let out the smoke.

It was only in their “fourth attack”, that firefighters destroyed the mall’s entrance  gate in Colon Street past 4 a.m. to gain full entrance after Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama arrived.

Rama gave orders to force their way inside.   At that point, the guards rolled up the metal doors.

By then, over three hours had already elapsed since the fire alarm.

Comar said his men finally entered the mall through a fire exit going to the second floor.

“Tanan exit and entrance amo nang gisudlan.” (We entered all exits and entrances.) Comar said.

Comar said about 150 firefighters, including volunteers, responded to the alarm.

“The sprinklers in the building worked. They helped but they were not enough.”

Property damage was pegged at P55 million for the structure and some of the merchandise and contents in the mall, said SFO3 Fortunato Bucia, Chief Investigator.

The figure may go higher, he said, once damage reports of mall tenants are in.

Since the amount exceeds P40 million, the case will be investigated by the Cebu Provincial Fire Marshal and Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) 7 as a matter of procedure, he said.