LEGAZPI CITY – A seven-hour fire hit a mountainous slope in this city on Monday night affecting about a half hectare of grassland in the village of Lamba, the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) said.
The bush fire broke out at about 6:07 p.m. Monday and was declared fire out by fire investigators at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to Senior Fire Officer 2 Raymundo Oliver of the BFP here.
Oliver, in a phone interview, said the fire quickly spread along the grassland area in Purok 1, a sub-village of Barangay Lamba, a rural village in the eastern flank of the city located some 5 km from the city’s commercial district.
Oliver said the bush fire was far from inhabited area and did not pose a threat to residents of the village.
He said they have yet to determine what caused the fire, stressing there was no evidence to back earlier reports that some villagers might have caused the fire when they were clearing the area of cogon grass. The clearing work was allegedly on the imprimatur of a land developer who was eyeing to turn the site into a plush subdivision. CDG
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