From bush fires to urban conflagration, it is quite difficult even for seasoned chasers to track down what fire is the biggest, most expensive, and with the most number of victims, including killed, missing, or displaced.
Comparatively speaking, pre-war fires, when the Philippine peso was the equivalent to an American dollar, were not as extensive as those that have transpired in the post-war era. Then and now, the visible differences lie in the number of population affected, total damage inflicted, and the number of structures razed, wholly or partially.
A browse through some of the centuries-old records and recent accounts has yielded interesting fire facts, most of them happening in Manila and chiefly affecting population centers. It was only in recent years, though, that forest fires have become such a huge threat given the absence of an institution equipped with personnel and skill to combat this specific menace.
Colonial fires
On April 20, 1907, Paco, Manila, then a bustling settlement, was razed to the ground, nearly rendering an entire community into a wasteland. Three years later, the ‘Great Fire of Manila’ that almost wiped out Binondo, Manila’s Chinatown, left thousands without homes. Cost of that disaster, in pre-war money, was estimated at over Php2 million.
In 1915, two big fires threatened Baguio City, the summer capital of American administrators. One of the fires spread to Camp John Hay and killed an American officer who, with a contingent of Scout soldiers, were sent to put out the fire. The other one threatened to devour some of the buildings of Baguio Hospital.
One and a half decade later, a big fire wiped out Singalong, San Marcelino and San Andres streets in Manila on March 13, 1930. Nearly a thousand residences were burned while some 4,000 people were displaced. Six years later, at the beginning of April 1921, a big fire hit San Lazaro District, in Manila, which rendered thousands of people homeless.
Fire prevention
In the Philippines, fire prevention, as it suggests, means the reduction of incidences related to conflagration. This was embodied in Presidential Proclamation No. 115–A, which declared March as the official Fire Prevention Month. Ironically, official records around the archipelago would show that March, which is the start of summer, is also the month with most fires.
The proclamation, signed by then President Ferdinand E. Marcos on Nov. 17, 1966, abolished Safety and Accident Prevention Week and in its lieu declared every year as Safety and Prevention Year, was premised on three vital points.
First, it concedes that “there is indisputable evidence of a considerable rise in accident occurrence every year not only in industrial, commercial and agricultural enterprises, but especially on the highways, in schools and even in our homes, most of which are unrecorded.”
Moreover, the edict said, “these accidents not only cause heavy financial losses and consequent economic dislocation among those affected and to our country at large, but also immeasurable human suffering.”
The decree also stipulated that “there is now, more than ever as a part of our national development, an impelling and constant need for propagating safety consciousness among our people every day of the year as a positive preventive approach to a problem that can be solved by more caution, vigilance, sobriety, exercise of common sense and respect for the law.”
A city on fire
Unlike typhoons, fires leave victims almost nothing but burned structures and ashes. This was the experience of Davao’s central business district when it underwent a huge conflagration that nearly wiped out its commercial center on Feb. 10, 1964. Though no death was recorded and the incident traced to faulty electrical wiring, the blaze, which started at Davao Superette at Anda-Rizal junction, was one of the biggest fires to hit the city in post-war years.
The morning flames ate up Lyric Theater, Universal Theater, and Liberty Barber Shop, and all the stores along Anda and San Pedro streets, including the Vera Cruz Hotel. Miraculously, the houses of the Magallanes, Monfort and Oboza families were spared. The fire moved westward, consuming a second block that left the homes of Dizon, Sasin, Pineda, and Panganiban families, situated across the present Phil-Am building, untouched.
Embers from the burning blocks were fanned by strong winds that helped start another fire on a third block to the left of the first block. Stores like Gift Mart, Three Sisters, Tung Chong Grocery, and Farmacia Pascual were reduced to ashes as the conflagration sped in the direction of City Hall. Similarly, the flying embers from the second block crossed to the nearby chunk, gobbling up Liberty Theater. Only the Carriedo residence was spared.
From the third block, the fire jumped to another, burning the old Brokenshire Hospital (where Grand Men Seng Hotel now stands). From the first block, the conflagration crossed Ponciano Reyes Extension, or Crooked Road, in the direction of San Pedro Church, swallowing on its way Gems Theater at corner San Pedro and Bolton streets, Loleng’s Refreshment Parlor, and the pre-war residence of the Lizada family.
Except for the gutted trees at the government center, the iconic San Pedro Church, the Immaculate Conception College (then housed at the church auditorium which now serves as parish rectory), and the City Hall were past their worst.
More infernos
For those who have resided in Davao City in the past sixty years, there were equally devastating fires that really left significant, if traumatic, memories.
For instance, in 1965, the areas between Rosemarie Road and Santa Ana Avenue, home to numerous warehouses stocked with articles costing millions, were razed to the ground. The fire, fortunately, was locked in by the old Carpenter and F. Bangoy streets.
Notable among the casualties were the National Rice Corporation (NARIC, today’s National Food Administration) and the National Marketing Corporation (NAMARCO). The iconic Luc Tian Restaurant, which has since faded to oblivion, and the old Prudential building, which now houses an eatery known as Blue Carabao, were spared.
After the fire, what was left were the mountains of burned rice, bloated canned goods, and other commodities stored in over a dozen warehouses within the gutted premises.
In the fourth quarter of 1976, a huge fire gobbled up the area from Piapi Public Market to the Mini-Forest, leaving thousands of families displaced. The shantytown fire started after two kids were left inside an old two-story structure where they were playing with matches.
Years later, the Mabini section of Quezon Boulevard entered the fire list after it was hit by a huge conflagration that torched hundreds of houses and left thousands without homes, possibly the largest displacement in the city’s fire history.
Recent blazes
On April 5, 2014, in what is construed by some pundits as the city’s largest fire, thousands of people, numbering 3,000, were displaced after the villages of Isla Verde 23-C, 21-C, and 22-C, composed mostly of structures clumsily built from light materials, were razed to the ground. The fire took six hours to contain and it left an estimated damage of Php15 million in properties.
The entry of March 2016 as Fire Prevention Month also ushered in two huge fires that hit Barangay 27-A Bucana, the city’s largest settlement. The first fire struck Purok 13-B, Kasilak Riverside, on March 8, 2016, razing 61 houses and displacing 230 persons. Damage was placed at Php5 million. Early press accounts reported one killed and three missing.
Meanwhile, the second Bucana fire struck on March 10, 2016, at Purok 12 St. John, burning around 150 houses. One was reported dead while two were missing.
