Fire in the City
It was a quiet Saturday afternoon and there was a power interruption for more than 3 hours. The power came back up but flickered three times. All seems normal and we just continued enjoying the quiet afternoon. We heard the siren of a fire truck but didn't pay attention to it. After a few minutes, I heard more sirens rushing by. I knew that something was not right.
My wife checked FB to see what was going on and saw panic in our city. Let me share with you some of the scenes during this tragic event.
I went outside to document and see the status of our city. The moment I stepped out, the smell of smoke surrounded me. People were outside watching the firefighters, people were coming out of the burning area carrying anything they could from their burning houses.
Dozens of fire trucks were on the streets from different municipalities and some even came from Manila. Here you could see one of the firefighters already exhausted.
The Navy was one of the first responders when the fire broke out.
The fire already reached a building on the main road. At this time the firefighters were successful in putting out the fire on this building. But the fire is still blazing and consuming the houses at the back streets.
Some of the firefighters are very young and I believe a lot are volunteers.
They have put out a big fire on this building but some sections are still burning.
Must be the fire chief? I don't know.
When there are disasters people are always on the streets which are normal in our country.
Smoke has surrounded our city and everyone is worried about our burning city. News has gone out to other places with the help of social media. A big cloud of smoke can be seen by neighboring towns outside our city.
With the information I received, there was 29 firetruck that came to aid our burning city. It is amazing how neighboring towns and cities responded so quickly. I saw a video of one of the fire trucks from Manila rushing to our aid. Manila is full of traffic which cost them an hour to reach our city.
As each fire truck arrived people were clapping as our heroes were arriving. This kind of support gives us comfort that neighboring towns and cities will always be there when there is a tragedy. As reported this is the biggest fire to ever hit our city. A lot of people lost their homes but this kind of support is a boost of morale for our citizens. The fire was still raging and was quickly burning more houses in every moment that passes by. Firefighters were moving as quickly as they could to put out the blaze.
These are just some of the scenes from last Saturday. I'll be sharing more photos from the back streets next time as people were leaving the burning area.
See you soon and always stay safe.
All photos are original and taken with
Lumix GX85 and Olympus 45mm f1.8