The cries of a two-month-old baby alerted a couple to the fire that would later destroy their house and leave 18 more families homeless in Mandaluyong City early Friday, authorities said.
Chief Insp. Francia Embalsado, head of the city’s arson investigation unit, said the infant son of one Francisco Magalawis suffered second-degree burns in the hour-long fire on Block 38, Saluyot Street, near Martinez Highway in Barangay Addition Hills.
The fire started at around 1:30 a.m. at the room the Magalawis family was renting and quickly spread to the next houses.
“We were afraid that the fire would cover a large portion of Barangay Addition Hills,” Embalsado said, noting that the affected houses were part of a large shantytown in the area.
Narrow streets also prevented fire trucks from getting near the homes, he said.
Fire investigators suspected that the blaze was caused by a candle that toppled over or was left unattended inside the Magalawis residence as the family slept.
The house didn’t have a power supply, Embalsado said.
The officer said previous fires in Addition Hills had also been caused by candles. One fire that broke out in April killed a baby, he recalled.
Before dawn on Friday, Magalawis’s baby cried in pain as the flames started to spread, rousing his parents from their sleep and enabling them to escape, Embalsado said.
In Manila, fire officials also believed that a candle caused Friday’s predawn fire that destroyed the homes of some 150 families living under the Nagtahan Bridge in Sta. Mesa. No one was reported injured.
SFO2 Emmanuel Gaspar of the Manila Fire District said the fire started at around 2:21 a.m. from the house of Baby Centeno at 3131 North Nagtahan Street.