165 fires raze Cordi forests; ‘BFP lacks tools, training’

Fire burns mountain near Philex Mines 

By PNA and Ronamee Galangco

BAGUIO CITY – Lack of training and equipment of fire fighters in the Bureau of Fire Protection is hampering the government agency in fighting forest fires, BFP officials said even as fire engulfed around 10 hectares of forest at Sitio Pukis, Ampucao in Itogon, Benguet around 10 a.m. Wednesday near the open pit of Philex Mines.

Local firemen, Philex Fire Brigade and volunteers tried to stop the fire but it razed vegetation going downhill up to Bomolo of Philex Mines and slowly subsided after burning around 10 hectares of forest.

The fire was stopped by rain around 5 p.m. that day. No person was injured during the incident.

This, as BFP and Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources officials in the Cordillera on Tuesday said 165 fire incidents have been recorded from Jan. 1 to March 12 this year, which led to the destruction of 797 hectares of forest lands.

Senior Supt. Sofia Mendoza, BFP-Cordillera regional director, said out of the 165 fire incidents, 122 were grass and forest fires, 36 structural fire incidents with 27 of them being residential and seven “other” fires.

The BFP estimated the cost of damage due to fire incidents at P20.94 million.

Meanwhile, Augusto Lagon, Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources Cordillera assistant regional director for technical services, said the 122 grass and forest fires had an estimated damage of P4.31 million.

Lagon said 704.23 hectares of natural forests and 92.96 hectares of plantation forests have been destroyed due to “kaingin” or slash and burn farming, arson, indiscriminate throwing of cigarette butts, unattended burning of garbage, and campers who are unable to control the fire from their food burners.

Lagon said most of the forest fires occurred in Benguet involving 683.4 hectares; 88.8 hectares in Kalinga; and 24.95 hectares in Mountain Province.

In a separate interview, Benguet Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO) chief Carlos Arida Sr. said based on their assessment, as a result of the aerial survey on March 8, the forest fires were correlated to farming.

“Kasi kung makikita mo ang start ng fire nasa tuktok pababa na parang ang purpose as expansion ng agricultural farms (If you can see, the fire started at the top of the mountain going down which indicates that they are expanding their agricultural farms),” Arida said.

He said filing a case is not feasible due to the difficulty of looking for witnesses.

Arida, however, said they have a case in Mankayan where they caught the perpetrator and the case was amicably settled. The perpetrator paid a fine amounting to the cost of the reforestation of the burned area.

Arida said they have recorded 19 forest fires in all municipalities of Benguet.

He said the fire in January 2018 in Mt. Pulag, which was caused by the uncontrolled fire from the cooking equipment of a camper, is still being heard in court.

He said the parents of the accused in the criminal case sought for the settlement of the administrative case and was fined the amount of P53,900 as a compromise agreement.

The fire destroyed around 23,600 hectares at the summit area of the mountain.

The DENR closed the area for about six months to allow the grass to grow again, preventing hikers from going up to the summit. Campers are only allowed up to the second camp site.

Mt. Pulag has become popular because of the sea of clouds seen by mountain hikers in the area.

In Baguio City, Fire Chief Insp. Roberto Aragon said due to the inaccessibility of forest fire areas, it took at least three days to suppress recent fires completely.

He also added that the techniques and equipment used by BFP personnel are designed to fight structural fires.

However, Fire Fighters of Christ, a non-government organization, is now training BOF personnel here to be better equipped and trained to handle future fire incidents.

Based on the statistics given by Aragon and submitted to the BFP, there were a total of 77 fire incidents in Baguio City,  54 of which were forest fires, 12 grass fires, 8 residential fires, 2 non-residential fires, and one vehicular fire incident.

Damage to properties of these fires was pegged at P2 million. -- PNA