Man in Villamor Air Base goes to bed drunk, dies in fire

MANILA, Philippines—A man believed to have gone to bed drunk died in a fire that swept through his house and another home inside Villamor Air Base in Pasay City shortly before midnight, the city’s fire marshal said Thursday.

Pasay City fire marshal Chief Insp. Douglas Guiyab said the body of Marcelino Sobrevega, 51, found in a six-foot-deep basement early Thursday morning. Sobrevega’s family had been frantically looking for him at the height of the fire.

According to his family, Sobrevega went to bed drunk on the second floor of their house in Barangay 183, Zone 4, in Villamor Air Base, and may have slept through the ensuing panic, Guiyab said in a telephone interview.

The fire started at 11:25 p.m. at the Sobrevega house at the corner of 4th and 9th streets and quickly spread to an adjacent house. The fire was put out at 1 a.m. after it reached the third alarm and had destroyed the two houses, leaving around 10 people homeless, said Guiyab.

Guiyab said that when they were conducting clean-up operations, they discovered a cavity or basement underneath the debris of the collapsed Sobrevega house. It was here that the lone fatality was found.

“The area was once used as storage area of ammunition in the air base,” Guiyab said, explaining the basement. “In fact, during the fire, ammunition was exploding,” he said.

Though the cause of the fire was still under investigation, Guiyab’s team surmised it may have been caused by a candle left unattended. This theory was based on the statement of a child who claimed he witnessed the beginnings of the fire. With a report from Jamie Marie Elona

First posted 9:29 am | Thursday, July 26th, 2012