2 fires kill 1, raze 12 houses

LUCENA CITY–A man was killed after he was trapped inside his burning house in Barangay Ibabang Dupay before midnight on Sunday.

Alvin Melendres, 26, went back to his smoke-filled two-story house to retrieve documents but was unable to escape. His body was recovered three hours later by firemen on the second floor, said Senior Supt. Valeriano de Leon, police provincial chief .

The fire, whose cause was still undetermined, broke out at 9:20 p.m. at the house of an Edgardo Veloria and quickly spread to five other houses before firemen put it out at 12:40 a.m.

Ten hours later and some 500 meters away, another blaze struck San Francisco Subdivision, burning at least 12 houses made of light materials. No one was reported injured. Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon