Less than a day after Mayor Samuel Laynes warned constituents to take care when using candles during the storm, two fires occurred one after the other just hours after “Paeng” passed by the capital town.
According to initial reports of the Virac Fire Station, it received the call for assistance at 3:54 AM of Oct. 29 from a priest at the Fiat Village compound who said that a one-storey building that housed three offices was on fire.
The personnel of the Bureau of Fire Protection arrived at the scene just six minutes later and found the entire building, occupied by the Caritas Virac Justice & Peace, SEDP, staff quarters and a storage area, already in flames.
Three firetrucks, including one from Bato Fire Station, responded to the blaze, with the fire declared under control at 4:48 AM and fire-out at 6:26 AM.
The possible cause of the blaze, which occurred while electricity was cut off provincewide due to “Paeng” and the estimated damage has yet to be determined by investigators.
A resident of the Roman Catholic compound said most of the priests, including Bishop Manolo delos Santos, were out of the island attending a yearly retreat at the time of the incident, with only 10 priests left behind in the province.
It is claimed that another resident saw flames coming out of the windows at the middle part of the building sometime after 3 AM and immediately called a member of the clergy, who then contacted the fire station’s hotline number.
Meanwhile, one of the firetrucks on the way to the Fiat blaze was speeding along the highway near the Virac Water District when it noticed smoke coming from service tricycle parked at the side of the building.
It stopped and quickly doused the flames at the front part of the vehicle. Fortunately, the gasoline inside the fuel tank did not ignite as it could have caused the fire to reach the nearby building.