BAGUIO MARKET GUTTED BY HUGE BLAZE

Photo by: Darius Bajo

 

BAGUIO CITY (March 12, 2023)

A large portion of the Baguio City Public Market was charred after a huge fire that started at around 11:00 PM Saturday spread quickly until past 2:00 AM Sunday dawn gutting the whole Block 4 and half of Block 3 and so-called caldero section.

Baguio City Fire Marshal Supt. Marisol Odiver traced that the fire began at the Block 4 extension area, specifically at the “ukay-ukay” section near the chicken livestock area. Arson experts are still probing the cause of the fire, that according to authorities damaged more or less P24 million private and public property.

Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, they are looking at around 1,700  out of 3,900 stalls in the area that were totally damaged. Initial investigation showed that the fire quickly spread because of the heavily combustible materials in the area and the fire trucks of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP)-Baguio have to travel more than two kilometers as they are located at the BFP sub fire station Barangay Irisan.

While some of the fire trucks were also at the site of a forest fire at Barangay Camp 7 near the Mt. Sto Tomas area that started at 3:00 PM Saturday and was still ablaze past 11:00 PM just as the public market fire broke out. Fire fighters from neighboring towns of La Trinidad and Tuba, Benguet also came to the rescue. The midnight fire, that sparked speculations anew of the start of the market development said to be won by a huge realty developer,  was officially declared “fire out” at 4:30 AM Sunday.

By: Artemio A. Dumlao

Amianan Balita Ngayon