Pole Blaze Topped List Of Fire Incidents In Iloilo City, Says BFP

ILOILO CITY – The Iloilo City branch of the Bureau of Fire Protection reported that pole blazes ranked first in the list of fire incidents.

According to SunStar, chief of operation of the local Fire Station Senior Fire Officer 4 Aquilino Sampiano said that about 400 incidents per year have been recorded, with 408 cases in the year 2018 and 459 in 2019.

Sampiano elaborated that fire incidents on the city includes pole fires, while others were structural, grass and vehicular fire. Pole fires are frequent in the months of May, June, and July, and occurs during peak time where electricity is used.

The chief also said that there were instances where they have to respond to four fire alarms in one day.

“This fires are caused by dilapidated electrical wirings in the buildings or overloading of electricity,”

Panay Electric Company (Peco) head of Public Engagement and Government Affairs Marcelo Cacho further confirmed that the poles that were blazed were owned by Peco. However, he said that the incidents were brought about by other factors was not theirs.

“Poles cannot cause a fire and actually 97 percent of all Peco poles are cement already. The remaining three percent are being phased out based on usability and we are applying outage management so as not to burden our customers also with multiple outages,”

Cacho said that none of the cases cited by the BFP report was caused by an overloaded transformer.

“And should there be an issue with the wires, we have protective devices in place to make sure power is cut to prevent damaging nearby property,”

As per the report, Cacho added that they have apprehended 201 persons who were caught pilfering power from November 13 to January 6. further confiscating 3.8 kilometers of illegal lines that were used to pilfer power.