Fire hit mall in Pasay City , reaches Tak Force Echo

Ma. Lourdes “ Miami ” Ebilane
January 3, 2008
Story: Fire hit mall in Pasay City , reaches Tak Force Echo

A mall in Pasay City near Baclaran station of Light Rail Transit (LRT) was razed due to fire that lasted for almost 10 hours before it was declared under control.

The fire started at around 5:30 a.m. , then at around 11:30 am it was already declared as Task Force Echo. Then at 3:35 p.m. the fire was declared under control by Sr. Supt. Ruben Bearis, Jr. Regional Director of Bureau of Fire Protection for National Capital Region.

The establishment is the Galleria Baclaran Shopping Mall, a three storey building located at Taft Avenue Extension, Pasay City . The shopping mall contains different stalls which sell ready to wear clothes, sandals, bags and others.

The fire fighters had difficulty in going directly at the area to stop the fire because of the narrow street, vendors at the street and people watching the fire.

Another problem encountered by the fire fighters was there were no water hydrants at the area and they do not have enough water to stop the spread of the fire. Also, because of the narrow street, once one of the fire trucks has no more water, other fire trucks should move and make adjustments in order for the empty water fire truck to leave the area and give chance to other fire trucks.

“Since there were no establishments or other buildings beside the Galleria Baclaran Shopping Mall the fire was confined only there,” Bearis said.

Also, the fire fighters cannot go inside the said establishment because of the thick smoke.

Bearis also added that the other reason for the fire that lasted so long is because the clothes inside the mall were also burning. There is a bridge connecting at the LRT station and at the mall but this was not affected.

They were able to identify the origin of the fire but the source is still unknown, “It was at the middle part at the ground floor lobby,” Bearis said. There were reports that the cause of the fire is short circuit.

According to Bearis, the lot area of the mall is 5,000 sq. m. and the estimated cost of damages is P40-50 million. There were no casualty on the incident but there were two injured. Bearis identified them as Allan Apostol and Jessica Maybunga. Both only suffered from minor injuries.

The Taft Avenue Extension is also known as close to vehicles because of the vendors that are occupying the entire street.

50 fire trucks from all over Metro Manila with 200 fire fighters together with volunteers responded at the area.

Meanwhile, at around 10:00 am , the LRT management decided to halt their trip from station and vice-versa. But the Buendia station up to Monumento was not stopped.

The electricity of the LRT Baclaran to Libertad was shut down to prevent the heat at the electricity that may cause another fire as well.