Fire hits two school campuses in Maguindanao del Norte

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A four-classroom building was destroyed while another was partially damaged by fires that hit two school campuses in Maguindanao del Norte before dawn Saturday, both designated as polling sites for Monday’s synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.

The first of the two fire incidents destroyed a building with four classrooms inside the campus of the Ruminimbang Elementary School in Barangay Ruminimbang in Barira in north of Maguindanao del Sur.

Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said villagers reported having noticed the four-classroom building inside the Ruminimbang Elementary School campus in flames at about 2:00 a.m. Saturday.

Responding personnel of the Barira Municipal Police Station, PRO-BAR’s 1404th Regional Mobile Force Company and members of the Bureau of Fire Protection had promptly prevented the fire from spreading through other school buildings nearby.

At about 4:00 a.m. Saturday, firemen managed to immediately douse off the fire that hit a classroom in the Central Pilot Elementary School in the town proper of Datu Odin Sinsuat in the southern part of Maguindanao del Norte.

Nobleza, citing an initial report from the Datu Odin Sinsuat MPS, said the fire that partially damaged the school building started at its windows with wooden jalousies.

Nobleza said policemen and BFP fire probers are still trying to determine the causes of the fires that hit the two school campuses.