By John Mark Escandor
NAGA CITY, Aug. 11 (PNA) — A forest fire that started 1 p.m. Saturday had eaten up at least 150 hectares of a second-growth forest before it was put out by joint efforts of the provincial government of Camarines Sur and villagers on Sunday.
Edencia Orlina, head of Barangay Harubay in Calabanga town in Camarines Sur, said in a telephone interview Monday that the concerted efforts of employees from the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council of Camarines Sur and volunteers from their village paid off using simple ways of preventing the fire from spreading further.
Orlina said the forest fire burned hundreds of trees of hardwood species at the shoulders of Mt. Isarog.
She also noted that Barangay Kaway-nan in the neighboring town of Tinambac had been greatly affected with at least 100 has of forest while on their side (Harubay), 50 has had been consumed.
She said they could not have put off the fire had it not been for the immediate response of Governor Miguel Luis Villafuerte who dispatched more than 50 volunteers, mostly foresters, to the area.
Orlina said provincial government employees and volunteers did the job by studying the direction of the wind and the fire and preempted its spread through simple clearing of the vulnerable area.
She said one small rest house was destroyed by the fire. (PNA)