Fire ravages 10 homes at back of UP campus

Germana Pizon played card games with friends outside when she saw a huge fire break out of the second floor of her house in sitio Sunset Drive Extension, barangay Lahug, Cebu City at past 5 p.m yesterday.

“We ate tempura and played some card games and when I saw the huge fire at the second floor of our house, I immediately ran,” said the 64-year-old Pizon, whose home is located at the back of the University of the Philippines-Cebu (UP-Cebu).

About 10 houses mostly made of light materials were destroyed in the fire with damages placed at P120,000.

Pizon said four couples rented the second floor portion of her house but no one was around since they all went to church.

She stayed in the area since the 1980s. Pizon said the last time a fire broke out in the area was seven years ago.

She only managed to bring her black sling bag which contained keys, a notebook and cell phone among others.

“My radio, television set, videoke and mini-piano were all gone,” she said.

The burned houses were all adjacent to each other.

Firefighters had to climb down the vine-covered fence at the back of the UP campus to reach the site.

Only the house of Fe Paler, was spared from the fire after her live-in partner, Jerry Delgado, broke the water pipes outside their house with a wrench.

Paler said they ran out of the house with their three children.

She said the water from the pipes helped put out the fire. Paler said they immediately turned off the power in their house and called for help from neighbors.

Cebu City Fire Marshal Aderson Comar said based on their investigation, the fire may have been caused by an appliance that wasn’t turned off from Pizon’s house. Correspondent Rhea Ruth V. Rosell