A SMALLER fire hit the same barangay of Carreta in sitio Bagong Bahay past 2 p.m. in Aug. 25 this year.
A man burned his back and arms, while a teenage boy injured his foot.
Electrical misuse or faulty electrical wiring was suspected to be the cause as one tenant recalled hearing a popping sound in the ceiling before his house caught fire.
The August fire left 27 families homeless after destroying 14 houses of light materials.
At the time, a disaster office official noted that interior roads in the sitio needed “widening and restoration.” Fire trucks had a hard time entering the area .
After the fire, Mayor Michael Rama said he would first sit down with barangay Carreta officials to discuss the proposed widening of the access road.
The lots of the affected families are under the National Housing Authority (NHA) program, according to barangay captain Eduardo Lauron but residents had not yet started paying the amortization.
In 2011, the Cebu city government proposed a re-blocking of sitios Laurente, Terra Cura and Ponce Dos of barangay Carreta, and Sambag of barangay Tejero to correct its narrow access roads after firefighters struggled to put out a fire in sitio Ponce a year earlier.