Firemen took five hours to put out the fire which destroyed Unit III of the Carbon Market in Barangay Ermita.
OVER P1 million in properties including the Market Authority Office were razed by fire that lasted almost five hours at the Carbon Market Unit III in Barangay Ermita Cebu City, Thursday afternoon.
According to Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) Cebu City Fire Marshall, Noel Abapon, an initial investigation revealed that the fire was caused by the snapping of a live wire resulting to a transformer exploding near the Prevention, Restoration, Order, Beautification, Enhancement (PROBE) warehouse inside the market.
“Pagkaputol sa kuryente nga live wire, nisidlak ang kayo sa bodega. (When the live wire snapped, fire erupted inside the warehouse),” said Abapon.
The fire alarm was received at 3:16 p.m, raised to third alarm at 3:24 p.m., and put out at 7:19 p.m.
Abapon said there were no difficulties in responding to the fire but it took time to put it out because of the density of combustible materials inside the market.
More than 100 stalls were destroyed along with vegetables, baskets, fruits, and other merchandise sold in the market.
The Cebu City Market Authority Office was also burned resulting to the loss of vital documents related to the running of the market.
Carbon Market Administrator, lawyer Winifredo Orcullo Jr., told Cebu Daily News that the affected vendors cannot yet go back to the stalls they occupied.
But vendors whose stalls were saved, can continue to sell at the market. Orcullo said that when the fire started, he and the rest of his personnel were inside the office.
“I am concerned about the document files of the vendors because none of them were saved. We even had new documents to be processed on renewal for stall lease and they will have to be filed again,” said Orcullo.
Assistant Administrator for Market Operations, Arnel Quijano was conducting a seminar for the vendors applying for renewal of their stall leases when the fire broke out.
“We had at least 30 vendors inside the office and when the fire broke, I calmly asked them to evacuate,” said Quijano.
The market office was situated at the center of Unit 3.
Stall owner Felix Rupinta said that all the fruits he sold in the market were damaged.
He said he tried to save his produce but the volume of people evacuating from the burning market made it impossible for him to bring his merchandise with him.
Rupinta claimed that the fire was due to some of the vendors who illegally tapped on electricity which exploded transformer.
Fruit vendor Ramil Solis lost P47,000 worth of properties.
While he was able to bring out his fruits, they were destroyed by the people crowding outside the burning market.