A COUPLE and their three children died after they were trapped inside their burning house in Caloocan City before dawn Sunday.
Firefighters said they found four members of the Espayos family – Hilario, 48; his wife Pinky, 37; their daughter Beverly, 15; and son Bryan, 11 – huddled together in the toilet of their bungalow on Nazareth Street in Barangay (village) 185.
The body of the couple’s other son, 13-year-old Patrick, was found in the kitchen. Firemen said he had apparently tried to smash a portion of the wall above the sink in order to escape.
The hole, however, was too small for him to pass through.
Senior Fire Officer 4 Randy Resurreccion, chief arson investigator, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the fire started in the victims’ bakery at the front portion of the house.
Since the only way out of the house was through the bakery, the family ended up trapped in their burning home.
“There was practically no way out, there were no other doors or windows,” Resurreccion said.
The victims’ neighbors said the Espayos family was from Gubat, Sorsogon. They moved to Caloocan City in the 1990s, making a living through the bakery they opened in their house.
Ronald Montaño, a neighbor, said he knew the family was still inside their home when the fire broke out because the gate was locked.
“No one could have escaped from that fire. It was already huge when it woke us up,” he told the Inquirer.
Montaño said the victims were good people who lived simply. According to him, the couple has another son who recently went to Sorsogon to help an ailing grandmother.
The fire broke out at 2:26 a.m. It reached the third alarm and then spread to a nearby eatery and small store before it was put out at 3:38 a.m.
No one was reported injured or killed in the other establishments. A 13-year-old boy who was sleeping in the eatery managed to get out after the fire broke out.
Resurreccion placed the damage to property at around P800,000.
He said they had yet to determine what caused the blaze although some residents told him that the victims had always kept a lighted candle on an altar in the bakery.
The bodies of the victims, meanwhile, were brought to Savior Christ Funeral Homes on Quirino Highway.