File Photo courtesy of Jerome Quejano
LUCENA CITY, Philippines–Another brushfire broke out early Thursday on Mount San Cristobal, the third fire there since March 18, prompting an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to suspect the fires were deliberately set.
Salud Pangan, DENR park superintendent for Mounts Banahaw and San Cristobal, said the latest fire started around 5 a.m. on the Laguna side of side of the mountain but is near Barangay Sta. Lucia in Dolores, Quezon.
Pangan said she immediately dispatched forest rangers to monitor the fire.
“The fire is now smoky,” she said in a telephone interview, citing the latest report from the rangers.
Pangan said the blaze was confined to a small area.
The latest fire is the third to hit San Cristobal after a two-day blaze on March 18 and 19 and another one on April 1 that burned out the next day.
“I strongly believe that the series of fires in San Cristobal is intentional. These fires were man-made,” Pangan said.
She suspected that “kainginero” (slash-and-burn farmers) were behind the three fires.
Pangan said she called the attention of the Sta. Lucia village head to invite the known “kainginero” in the village to a meeting on April 5.
Shortly before noon Thursday, Manny Calayag, deputy environment officer of the provincial government who is from Dolores town, posted photos on his Facebook of the latest fire in San Cristobal which he took from Sta. Lucia.
The first fire in San Cristobal was caused by reckless wild honey collectors who burned dry leaves to blow smoke to the hives to avoid stinging and swarming, according to Pangan.
The fire wiped out 90 hectares of grassland and a portion of a government reforestation project in the area, not 140 hectares as the DENR had reported earlier.
On March 19, fire also struck the top portion of the fabled Mount Banahaw facing Sariaya, Quezon.
The blaze was found to have destroyed 25 hectares of mixed bush land and forest trees on the western slope of Banahaw after the final assessment of the DENR.
The DENR report said the fire was caused by religious pilgrims who left improvised stoves still burning, triggering the blaze.
In 2010, two successive grass fires also destroyed an estimated 70 to 80 hectares on San Cristobal.
The blaze was also accidentally triggered by an unextinguished fire left behind by honey gatherers.
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