2 fires greet New Year in Pasay City

Two separate fires broke out in the wee hours of New Year’s Day in Pasay City, killing one man and displacing tens of hundreds of residents who spent yesterday morning sifting through what remained of their houses to salvage any of their belongings, the local fire marshal said.

Chief Insp. Douglas Guiyab, however, did not immediately link the fires at Pildera Street and at T. Villanueva Street to the use of firecrackers, saying both incidents were still “under investigation” as of press time.

The fire at T. Villanueva Street gobbled at least 40 houses, and lasted nearly three hours because firefighters had trouble getting access to the site due to the narrow alleys, according to the fire official.

The incident reached the Task Force Alpha alert level past 4 a.m. Sunday and after an hour, firefighters managed to put the blaze under control and extinguished it completely before sunrise. No casualties were recorded in the fire.

While the smoke billowed at the site of the first fire incident, another blaze broke out at a residential area along Pildera Street, Guiyab said.

The Pildera fire reached the fourth alarm status before firefighters doused the blaze at 5:36 a.m.

Guiyab identified a fatality in the incident as Danny Lipata, 27, whose cause of death was still being ascertained.

The official estimated that the Pildera fire, which was near the house of former city mayor Wenceslao Trinidad, torched P5 million worth of property. Some 30 houses were burned to the ground.