Fire guts Marikina home, leaves family of 6 dead

A dog was the lone survivor in a nearly hour-long blaze that gutted a house in Marikina City and left a family of six dead early yesterday morning.

Supt. Edwin Vargas, Marikina’s fire chief, said that victims Gabriela Gatchalian, Justin and Bryan San Juan, and Samantha, Savanna and Allan Alvarado, were trapped and killed when a fire hit their house along E. Dela Paz Street in Barangay San Roque at 2:27 a.m.

Investigators, however, have yet to establish the cause of the fire, which only reached the first alarm and was declared out 42 minutes after it was reported.

Vargas said that two of the victims, Samantha and Savanna, were minors. He added that the victims were found at the ground floor of their two-story home, while their pet dog and lone survivor Solen was found on the second floor.

An estimated P50,000 worth of property was lost in the fire, which didn’t spread to nearby houses./rga