60m Property Lost to Pasar Fire

 Isabel, Leyte – Over Php 60M worth of property was estimat­ed to be damaged in a three-hour fire that razed a portion of the Acid Plant of the Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining (PASAR) Corporation, the country’s lone exporter

 of copper cathode, according to records gathered from the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP)- Isabel .

The fire started at around 6 a.m. of Monday, January 2 and was declared fire out at around 9 a.m. PASAR fire units and those from Philippine Phosphate Fertilizer Corporation (Philphos Corp.), a co-locator at the Leyte Industrial Development Estate (LIDE) in this town, helped put out the fire that was declared under “general alarm”. Several reinforcement units from the LGUs of Isabel, Merida and Ormoc City were also instru­mental in the fire-fighting oper­ations that prevented the fire to spread into other areas of PASAR’s plant. The cause how­ever is yet to be determined. Isabel Fire Station also pointed out that the fire occurred in the Electrostatic Precipitator of the Acid Plant.

The electrostatic precipitator (ESP), or electrostatic air cleaner, is a particulate collection device that removes particles from a flowing gas (such as air) using the force of an induced elec­trostatic charge. Electrostatic precipitators are highly efficient filtration devices that minimal­ly impede the flow of gases through the device, and can eas­ily remove fine particulate mat­ter such as dust and smoke from the air stream.

PASAR, in a statement received January 4 by this news­paper, confirmed the fire and added that there were no fatali­ties and only one minor injury of an employee who was involved in the fire-fighting operations. It said in its statement that it has ceased operations to assess the actual damage and investigate the incident.