When one talks about the largest fire in history to hit Davao City, the attention immediately turns to the February 9, 1964, blaze that burned enduring landmarks like the old Davao Mission Hospital (Brokenshire Hospital) while it was still proudly standing along Magallanes Street, in the same area where the Grand Men Seng Hotel now operates.
Eight years earlier, however, there was a more devastating conflagration, now almost forgotten. It was a conflagration that took eleven hours to contain, razed to cinders seven huge commercial blocks, left 10,000 people homeless, and cost US$10,000,000 in damage, roughly $112 million in today’s exchange, or P6.5 billion in Philippine currency equivalent.
The high cost of destruction, which affected Santa Ana wharf and the Monteverde-Uyanguren district, was attributed to the volume of merchandise and commodities stocked in numerous warehouses and bodegas lining the city’s old busy port area.
Meanwhile, the displacement estimate of 10,000 individuals being affected is rather huge given that Davao City at the time only had 140,000 in population. To contain the blaze, firefighters with limited equipment used dynamite in checking the spread of the inferno.
The United Press (UP) reported a lower figure of 8,000 persons being displaced, and the Philippine News Service (PNS), the forerunner of today’s Philippine News Agency (PNA), pegged the damage at US$5,000,000, half of what the Associated Press (AP), a wire agency, stated.
The fire, chiefly reported by the UP and AP through cables, got wide treatment in news outlets throughout the United States despite the limited details the papers carried. Wire agency subscribers in other countries, like the Peterborough Examiner (‘10,000 Left Homeless In Fire At Davao’) of Canada and the Singapore Free Press (‘10,000 Homeless’) also carried the news.
Among the US periodicals that published the story are Chillicothe Gazette (Chillicothe, Ohio); The Richmond News Leader (Richmond, Virginia); The Fresno Bee-The Republican (Fresno, California); Hawaii Tribune-Herald (Hawaii); Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas); Daily Republican-Register (Mount Carmel, Illinois); The Valdosta Daily Times (Valdosta, Georgia); and The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey).
Notwithstanding the coverage, memories of the devastating conflagration seem to start fading from the memory of old-timers. What comes out as fresh in their minds was the 1964 blaze that flattened the entire central business district of San Pedro Street.
Consequent to this catastrophic port incident, President Ramon F. Magsaysay signed Proclamation No. 283 dated March 27, 1956, “reserving the parcel of land embraced therein for fire station building site purposes situated in the City of Davao.” The site is where the regional office of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) now stands.
The edict, moreover, revokes Proclamation No. 256 dated February 14, 1956, which originally set aside the present BFP property for building site purposes of the now defunct Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR).
In appreciation for the presidential gesture, which is a way of thanking the Palace for finally ensuring that similar port conflagration could be avoided in the future, the Davao port foreshore area that was reclaimed and developed into a park was named in honor of Magsaysay.
Four years after the 1952 fire, The Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) reported in its July 30, 1956, issue, that a big fire hit Davao again: “A roaring fire today burned to death six persons of the business district in the big Southern Philippine port city of Davao, Philippine News Service reported. Police said early estimates placed property damage at $1 million.”
In today’s peso-dollar currency exchange, the damage is equal to P650 million.
