Robinsons alleged fire incident a dud

DAVAO CITY—The Davao City Police Office (DCPO) said the earlier reported fire at Robinsons Cybergate here turned out to be not a fire at all.

Senior Insp. Ma. Teresita Gaspan, city police spokesperon, said the investigation conducted with mall authorities revealed that the smoke seen by a guard around 2:25 a.m., not 3 a.m. as earlier reported, which was billowing from the machine room on the first floor of Robinsons, was actually leaking Freon gas.

The smoke, which spread from the machine room area of the supermarket, was not caused by any fire (but) it was caused by Freon gas leakage,” she said.

The reported fire had earlier raised concerns here as another mall had earlier been gutted by fire and 37 people were killed.

As in the case of the NCCC Mall, which caught fire on Saturday, Robinsons also hosted a BPO firm, which had workers on duty at the time of the alleged fire. Allan Nawal INQ