Fire season

It’s intriguing that fires break out with amazing regularity in March, as though they were acts of sarcasm to twit its designation as Fire Prevention Month. A cursory glance at reports of fire incidents in the metropolis starting in the early days of the month will show: one in a compound in Barangay Ibayo-Tipas in Taguig City on March 4, which injured two persons, displaced dozens of families, and resulted in damage of up to P1 million; another on F.B. Harrison Street in Pasay City on the same day, which left some 100 families homeless and, heartbreakingly, killed three young boys (2-year-old twins and a 3-year-old) whose mother had left them alone and sleeping while she stepped out to buy medicine; and yet another in Sitio 6, Barangay Catmon, Malabon City, on March 6, which rendered 40 families homeless and killed a 3-year-old girl who, unknown to her kin, had been left asleep in their rush to flee the flames.

The details in these and other incidents tend to produce the overused scenario of fire occurring in areas densely packed with dwellings made of little more than corrugated iron, scrap plywood and other light materials—as in the blaze that gobbled up some 100 houses and effectively threw more than 300 families out on the streets in Barangay Suba, Cebu City, on March 9—and supposedly caused by the usual suspects: an unattended lighted candle or gas lamp, or an overheated electric fan. In these and past experiences, it does not always happen that the cause of the fire is definitively pinpointed in the smoldering detritus that it leaves. Who is the public investigator that will perform the heroic act? The stiff breeze that topples the lighted candle that kindles the mosquito net that swiftly bursts into flame and scatters fatal embers is a random act of the universe. But the fire that razes rows of shanties dotting the urban sprawl, triggered by a panicked cat whose tail is drenched in gasoline and set ablaze by an evil hand (if the rumored modus operandi is true) is not.

Fire is the ultimate leveler, producing a tabula rasa, albeit smudged, after it runs its devastating course. Confronted then by the yearly incidence of fire in ever resurgent communities of informal settlers (for example, in the great squatter colony off Guadalupe on Edsa), or even in certain public markets that have long been eyesores and scheduled more than once for demolition in the face of tenants’ resistance, would it be unreasonable for the attentive observer to suspect arson?

The crime that carries the maximum penalty of life imprisonment is suspected to be behind the fire that razed the Ever Gotesco Grand Central Mall in Caloocan City, an inferno remarkable for its long raging—beginning from the night of March 16 until the early morning of March 20, when “fire out” was announced. As much as 90 percent of one of the oldest shopping centers in the metropolis has been destroyed and the damage is estimated to reach P700 million, according to the city fire marshal, Supt. Oscar de Asis, who has since been relieved of his post by Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo.

Certain elements make the case particularly curious: CCTV footage showing mall personnel inexplicably relaxed even with the indication of fire on the night of March 16; De Asis’ claim that the 5-story mall’s sprinkler system was functioning properly and that it had its own firefighting equipment; and Caloocan Mayor Enrico Echiverri’s statement that the fire could be the mall management’s “way to escape the payment of its debt to the local government.” The mayor said Gotesco Investments Inc. had been dunned by the city government since 2009 for real property taxes amounting to P722.3 million.

Robredo has ordered an investigation and required his department’s Inter-Agency Anti-Arson Task Force chaired by Senior Supt. Fennimore Jaudian to submit a report in 45 days. As it happens, the mall tenants are literally forced to cool their heels: They cannot as yet examine what’s left of their merchandise and the extent of their misfortune, and they need to await the results of the inquiry. They should not be faulted for their anger and impatience.

And the public needs assurance that the inquiry will result in something more than the discovery of whether or not arson was committed at the Ever Gotesco mall. Let it be the start of a shakeup in the Bureau of Fire Protection (now enmeshed in, among other things, a bidding controversy concerning a P243-million supply contract); let Fire Prevention Month not be just an occasion for sarcasm—and children’s deaths.