Cebu City mall fire rekindles 24 hours after breaking out

Firefighters arrive at Metro Department Store in Cebu Business Park on Friday night. —(Photo DALE ISRAEL / Cebu Daily News)

CEBU CITY — The fire that hit a department store here rekindled past 9 p.m. on Saturday, 24 hours after the blaze broke out.

Fire fighters immediately trained their hoses to put out the blaze on the third floor of the Metro Department Store at the Ayala Center Cebu to prevent it from creeping up to the sixth floor, the location of a generator set that contains 8,000 liters of fuel.

Senior Supt. Samuel Tadeo, director of the Bureau of Fire Protection in Central Visayas, said the blaze might have been rekindled by the wind especially that the floors were already exposed after they had torn down portions of the walls and roofs to ventilate the building and relieve the smoke and heat.

As of 11:54 p.m., the fire had not been placed under control and was still under Task Force Bravo, which meant all fire stations from Danao City in the north down to Naga City in the south were asked to respond to the alarm.

Tadeo said initial estimate of the damage was pegged at P100 million although it might go up to at least half a billion pesos.

In a brief statement released on Saturday, the Metro Ayala management apologized to the public as well as to its customers, tenants, mall partner and neighbors for the inconvenience caused by the fire.

It assured that the management’s primary concern had always been the safety of the customers and staff.

“We have and will continue to serve as a responsible corporate citizen by quickly restoring this store. As a Cebuano company, we will persevere. A better Metro will rise again to serve the community,” it said.

The management also thanked the different government agencies, fire stations and department and volunteers that responded to the fire alarm.