Tiong San Bazaar blaze: P200 million goods lost in Baguio fire

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY — Property and merchandise worth around P 200 million were lost in a 10-hour fire which destroyed the upper floors of an eight-storey bazaar located in the heart of this mountain resort city on Harrison Road.

The fire broke out afternoon on April 2 and raged late at night.

The fire, which burned the sixth, seventh and eight floors of the Tiong San Harrison Bazaar caused monstrous traffic jams in the central business district. The building is owned by the prominent Lao family.

The blaze almost gutted the Rosebowl restaurant beside the bazaar.

Insp. Jovencio Marquez, Baguio City fire Marshall, said the fire was reported at about 1:18 p.m. that day.

Firefighters of the Baguio city fire station rushed to the area around 500 meters from their headquarters.

Firefighters, with help from many of the city’s private water delivery firms, had a hard time dousing the fire at the sixth, seventh and eighth floors, even as crew from Benguet Electric Cooperative, Philippine Military Academy, Camp John Hay and nearby towns in Benguet came to the rescue.

The fire reportedly started on the sixth floor of the establishment and immediately spread to the two other floors, gobbling up highly flammable materials in the three floors, which served the bazaar’s stock rooms.

While no one was reported injured in the blaze, Marquez said the estimated P200 million could still go up because of the huge volume of merchandise stored in the stock rooms of the building, one of the oldest establishments in the city.

He said the cause of the fire is still being looked into although arson investigators said faulty electrical wiring could be the cause of the blaze, which was one of the biggest fires that hit the city in just over a month.

Last Feb. 16, properties worth at least P70 million went up in smoke when a four-hour fire destroyed three buildings of the University of Baguio high school department and three other nearby structures.

Marquez said it would be too early for the fire investigators to come out with a conclusion on the cause of the fire because they have yet to examine the debris of burned bazaar floors.

The fire was declared under control at about 10:40 p.m. that day but was again rekindled at about 4:10 a.m. April 6 because firefighters were not able to get inside the heavily stocked bazaar.

This was, in turn, caused by the insufficiency of breathing apparatus to aid the firemen overcome the thick smoke in the establishment.

Marquez had to dispatch another team to combat the rekindled blaze.

Tiongsan is the oldest chain of bazaars in Baguio City. Its oldest outlet along Magsaysay Avenue, across the public market, has been known since the 1960s. It recently opened a new branch in La Trinidad, Benguet.

The Tiongsan chain experienced its first huge fire about 10 years ago, said businesswoman-owner Ellen Lao.