Furniture shop worker killed, 3 hurt in Taytay fire

Nine workers of a furniture shop in Taytay, Rizal, scrambled to escape the fire raging in their sleeping quarters Wednesday morning, unaware that one of their colleagues was trapped.

After the blaze was put out in an hour, firemen found the charred body of Alvin Lorenzano, 27, under a still smoldering heap of debris.

The fire started at 4:30 a.m. at the sleeping quarters for workers of SCBC Enterprises, a furniture shop, on Rizal Avenue at the Royal Subdivision in Barangay San Juan, said investigator Senior Fire Officer 1 Roy Adrados of the Taytay Bureau of Fire Protection.

“They were all sleeping when the fire broke out. One of them was roused by the huge flames and shouted at everyone to wake up,” Adrados said in a phone interview.

The workers rushed out of their burning quarters and it was only later on that they realized that Lorenzano was missing, he added.

Three other workers identified as Rommel Bermudez, Raffy Peamora and Armando Falcon Sr. were  taken to a nearby hospital for first degree burns.

Firefighters managed to put out the blaze at 5:35 a.m.

“We still don’t know what caused the fire. It is possible that a lit cigarette or faulty electrical wiring started it,” Adrados said.

In Parañaque City, dozens of families sought shelter at a nearby school after their houses were razed by a fire Wednesday.

No one was hurt in the blaze which destroyed around 30 shanties at the boundary of Barangay Don Galo and Tambo at 12:45 p.m.

Insp. Nelson Tano, chief of the Parañaque Fire Station arson investigation department, said the fire started in the house of Roberto Buhawi.

It spread quickly to nearby houses and reached the fourth alarm before it was put out an hour later. With Nathaniel R. Melican