Mayor urgently appeals for a fire truck

LAGONOY,CAMARINES SUR (Sep 15, 2011) - After three destructive fires in the last two years, Lagonoy town Mayor Delfin R. Pilapil Jr. is appealing to Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo, to provide his town at least one fire truck.

The latest destructive fire razed the town’s public market in Sept. 8, damaging P4.5 million worth of properties including 30 public market stalls.

Mayor Pilapil said Monday (Sept. 12) that of the 10 towns in the Partido district (4th district) of Camarines Sur, only the two bigger towns - Goa and Tigaon - have fire truck.

Tigaon just recently got their sole fire truck from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

Pilapil laments that his town has a fire marshal but has no fire department.

In the Sept. 8 fire, fire trucks from Tigaon came two hours after the alarm was raised when the entire public market building was already consumed by the conflagration.

The Mayor said, he had written DILG Sec. Robredo a letter back in July 19, 2010, requesting for at least one fire truck a week after a fire gutted 5 classrooms of the Lagonoy Central School in July 10, 2010. Damages then reached P10 million and the fire displaced 200 pupils who until now have to be rotated in classes held in the remaining classrooms.

The Department of Education (DepEd) is yet to rebuild the damaged classrooms.

According to Pilapil, earlier in Dec. 2009, the local government was also helpless when a commercial and residential building owned by Nimpa Odiamar was burned to the ground.

In the absence of even a single fire truck, all 3 major fires in Lagonoy proved unstoppable even with the best fire-fighting effort of local residents, the Mayor said. (SONNY SALES)