Mall fire caused by firecrackers

A fire believed caused by firecrackers gutted down the Market Place shopping mall in Mandaluyong City yesterday.

Senior Inspector Ferdinand Samson, Mandaluyong fire department chief said the fire started at the ground floor of the mall where firecrackers are being kept at about 1:30 a.m.

The fire quickly spread to adjacent stalls where combustible products are kept and to the second floor of the building.

Samson said one of his men was hurt while battling the fire, which was put under control at past 2 a.m.

The fire chief is presently coordinating with City Hall officials to determine whether the stall owner has secured a permit to sell firecrackers.

Meanwhile, a man was injured after a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank exploded in a house in Karangalan village in Pasig City Tuesday.

Arson probers said the victim Arturo Arevalo was rushed to the UERM Hospital in Sta. Mesa treatment of burns in the body.

The incident occurred between 10 and 11 p.m. Tuesday, which also damaged the wall of the three-story house of the victim.

Initial investigation showed Arevalo, had just arrived home after attending a Christmas party, when he lighted a cigarette that triggered the explosion of the LPG tank inside the house.

In related developments, a fire hit the National Food Authority warehouse in Taguig City yesterday morning. A report from the Taguig Fire Department said that the fire started around 7:43 a.m. in the stockroom of the warehouse located at the FTI complex.

Senior Fire Officer 1 Douglas Modomo, arson investigator, said the fire which reached the Third Alarm, was declared under control at about 8:10 a.m.

A fire out was declared at around 8:20 a.m.

Initial investigation showed that no sack of rice was damaged since these are reportedly kept in the office and not in the warehouse.

Modomo said though that an investigation is ongoing to check if there were sacks left in the store room and if these were destroyed. No one was reported injured in the incident.

Taguig Fire chief, Senior Inspector Buenaventura Cuevas, pegged the damage to office equipments caused by the fire to have reached half-a-million pesos.  – With Rhodina Villanueva