ORMOC CITY- A fire reportedly caused by a substandard flashlight gutted down an old house this city in the evening of December 6. Razed down due to the more than three hour fire incident was the two-storey house inhabited by siblings Carmen Aranez, Nancy Sode, Ivy Pical and Jocelyn Soliva, located along San Nicholas Street. Based on the report of SFO2 Roel Wenceslao of the Ormoc Fire Bureau and Protection, the incident started at around 7 p.m. at the second floor of the house, which was divided into four doors. The fire was said to have originated from the area occupied by Sode’s family who were not around during the incident.
Wenceslao said Soliva told her daughter to check when she smelled an odor like a burning rubber that was later discovered due to combustion inside the area of the Sode family. Soliva and her daughter tried to force open the door only to retreat back due to the huge fire that already consumed the area. The fire incident was declared under control by the responding firemen at around 10.21 p.m. or more than two hours after they received the fire call at 8:35 p.m. No one was hurt on the incident.
Wenceslao said a reinvestigation was performed the following day that revealed that a charging flashlight had caused a short circuit resulted to the fire incident. Sode, a former electrical foreman abroad conformed to BFP’s findings, SFO2 Wenceslao went on. The incident had a damage of worth P1.5 million. (ELVIE ROMAN ROA)
