The iron grills on the windows doomed a family of four when these prevented them from getting out of their burning house in Cainta town, Rizal province on Tuesday morning, according to a report released only on Wednesday by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
Firefighters later found the charred bodies of Gary Nepomuceno, 46; his children Francine Nepomuceno, 4; and Butchay Nepomuceno, 2; as well as that of their relative Juliet Nepomuceno, 62; huddled together in a room.
Two other relatives identified as Mamerta Nepomuceno, 84; and Ligaya Nepomuceno, 58; managed to escape although they suffered minor burns.
The blaze which was first reported to authorities at 4:17 a.m. on Tuesday gutted the Nepomuceno’s bungalow-type house on Champaca Street, Greenland Subdivision in Barangay San Juan.
A fire wall prevented it from spreading to other houses and firefighters put it out at 4:55 a.m., according to Chief Insp. Bernard Rosete, the fire marshal.
“But the window grills in all three rooms of the house trapped [the victims] and made escape impossible,” Rosete said.
He added that firemen who responded tried to bore a hole in the wall to allow them to get inside the house and bring the victims out.
“But we still could not [go inside] because [the fire] was already huge and the location of the victims was where the fire was concentrated,” Rosete said.
The cause of the blaze remained under investigation but probers suspected that an unattended lighted candle or lamp started it.
According to investigators, power to the house was cut last month due to unpaid electricity bills.
The damage caused by the fire was estimated at P800,000. No one was reported killed or injured.
In Valenzuela City, a blaze broke out in a plastics and styrofoam factory on Tuesday night, leaving an estimated P16 million worth of damage to property.
FO1 Julius Vazquez said that the fire broke out at 7:44 p.m. at the Tyson Industrial Corp. office on M. Gregorio Street, Barangay Canumay West.
Security guards in the area said that the blaze started in a warehouse of the building owned by Tai Hu Shing. It then spread to other warehouses before it was put out at 11 p.m.
Although authorities did not have a difficult time getting to the area, Vazquez said it took them more than three hours to put out the blaze because the warehouse contained highly flammable materials. With Kristine Felisse Mangunay