10-70 Task Force Alpha - Samson Road Caloocan Nov. 10, 2011

Newville Engine (Advanced Engine in foreground, left)

I was just getting out of the shower this morning around 9:20AM when I heard our Fire Chief on the radio shouting "may sunog ata!" which had me scrambling to get dressed to go and true enough in just a few seconds the alarm already sounded on APVFBI. The location of the fire was along Heroes Del 96 and Samson Road in Caloocan in front of UE.


Our Newville Engine and Pumper 191 arrived on the scene within 5 minutes just as the 2nd Alarm was raised and I arrived with Advanced Engine after the 3rd Alarm was raised. Our vehicles were positioned along Samson Road which is at the rear portion of the fire. The flames started from a residential area at Malonzo St. corner Heroes Del 96 and spread quickly fanned by strong winds which led to Task Force Alpha being raised by 9:40AM.

The fire also damaged part of Gomburza Elementary School as the 3rd Floor ceiling caught fire but thankfully a lot of firefighters were inside the school compound along with our fire truck and were able to control the blaze before it could do further damage to the school. A total of 6 classrooms and a library were affected.

The fire caused a traffic gridlock at Monumento Circle and Sangandaan since the roads were blocked by emergency vehicles as well as media vans covering the incident.

There was this one barangay kagawad who kept on shouting and berating us firefighters for not supplying water to a particular fire truck who had people inside. He kept on saying that he would report the incident to the news and so on until other firefighters told him to shut up since he does not understand how firefighters work during fire alarms.

Thankfully more and more units arrived from different parts of the Metro thus continuous water supply was ensured which led to a "Fire Out" being declared by 10:35AM or about an hour after the blaze started. Our heartfelt gratitude to all fellow firefighters who responded to this fire alarm for their assistance.

View along Samson Road towards Monumento Circle

New Village Volunteers would like to especially thank the following for their assistance: Quezon City Volunteers (Extreme Tanker), Malabon Filipino-Chinese Volunteers, Kalookan Stainless, Binondo-Paco Volunteers, Central District Volunteers, and all others who have kept their water supply flowing to our fire engines.

Again, a very big THANK YOU to all! Mabuhay ang mga Volunteer!