15-hr fire shuts Robinsons Galleria for 2 days

The 15-hour fire that gutted Robinsons Galleria mall at the corner of Edsa and Ortigas Avenue forced management to order a two-day shutdown, with operations expected to resume at noon Friday, All Saints’ Day.

Authorities said the fire, which started at 10:55 p.m. Tuesday and was declared out at 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, destroyed some P10 million worth of property in the mall, one of the best performing businesses of the Gokongwei-led Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC).

SFO1 Francisco Mabunga of the Quezon City Fire District said the blaze was about to be declared out at 5:46 a.m. Wednesday after reaching the fifth alarm, but it reignited just before noon.

Mabunga said an initial investigation showed that it started from the third-floor stockroom then spread to the toys section of the main department store. The cause of the fire was yet to determined.

An advisory from RLC said Galleria would be closed to the public on Oct. 30-31 and would resume operations on Nov. 1 at 12 noon. The two-day shutdown was for “safety and health reasons,” the company said.

Also on Wednesday, another fire struck a neighborhood in Barangay Talipapa, Novaliches, Quezon City, injuring a boy and leaving 65 families homeless.

The fire on Dela Cruz Compound inside St. Martin Subdivision was reportedly caused by matchstick lit right next to a leaking LPG tank inside the house of Heidi del Carmen, according to investigator FO2 Jovelyn Panganiban.

A 4-year-old boy was brought to the nearby Pacific Global Medical Center for injuries after being hit in the right leg by one of the responding fire trucks.