The fire on Mt. Apo — which started from the summit campsite last Mar 26 (Black Saturday) — has not yet been officially declared as “fire out.”
“While Joselin Marcus Fragada, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) director in Southern Mindanao, said the fire has been contained, he explained that officials could not declare fire out yet pending an assessment by the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP),” reports Orlando Dinoy in Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Fragada revealed that some of the volunteers who helped fight the fire had been pulled out of their stations in the village of Kapatagan in Digos City. The volunteers included members of the Davao City Central 911.
Fragada said, “We still cannot declare fire out, but we are going there. We are making sure that Mt. Apo has no vents now that could possibly start fire.”
He added, “We’re now saying that it’s over, but officially, we hope the BFP will declare fire out before the week ends.”
That said, Mt. Apo is now indefinitely closed to mountaineering and related activities. Authorities are set to investigate how the fire started and who should be held responsible for it.
