{"id":224181,"date":"2016-03-29T06:01:04","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T20:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=224181"},"modified":"2016-03-29T06:01:04","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T20:01:04","slug":"3-hour-fire-burns-home-plus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/3-hour-fire-burns-home-plus\/","title":{"rendered":"3-hour fire burns Home & Plus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Two<\/a>
Two firefighters approach the fire scene as thick black smoke covered the area during the three-hour blaze at Home & Plus Department Store in San Antonio yesterday morning. Inset, a firefighter sprays water on an area at the Home & Plus Department Store. The blaze was placed under control after three hours. (Derek Gersonde)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A three-hour fire engulfed yesterday morning the Home & Plus Department Store in San Antonio, which has just opened for business last November. <\/p>\n

No one was injured in the blaze that was reported to the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services at 6:28am, according to DFEMS spokesman Derek Gersonde.<\/p>\n

As this developed, a bush fire burned acres of vegetation at Wireless Ridge in Capital Hill on Sunday. DFEMS is expected to release details about the fire today, Tuesday. <\/p>\n

The San Antonio fire snarled traffic for a couple of hours in the vicinity as thick black smoke covered both lanes of Beach Road.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to complexity of the fuel source, the cause of the fire is still undetermined and pending further investigation by the Arson Investigation Unit,\u201d Gersonde said.<\/p>\n

Home & Plus Department Store is located on the ground floor of the three-story commercial Afetnas Square Building, which used to hold the office of the CNMI Department of Labor and Immigration. <\/p>\n

Witnesses told Saipan Tribune that no one was inside when the fire broke out as the store was closed at that time.<\/p>\n

Gersonde said at 6:29am, firefighters and medics from Susupe, Koberville, Kagman, and Garapan Fire Stations responded.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth Ports Authority-Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting assisted DFEMS firefighters with the use of their water tanker.<\/p>\n

DKK Corp. and Saipan Ice also helped by providing 2,000 gallons and 1,500 gallons of water, respectively.<\/p>\n

Gersonde said the fire was under control at 9:21am.<\/p>\n

Gersonde said Arson Investigation Unit determined that the building is a three-story commercial building with multiple businesses.<\/p>\n

Investigation showed that the fire\u2019s point of origin was from the northern portion of the building.<\/p>\n

Heavy and moderate smoke and heat damage were found on the northern part of the building.<\/p>\n

Firefighters were able to stop the spread of the fire by extinguishing the flames in the northern end of the department store.<\/p>\n

Fire did not spread to AJ Poker Game located beside Home & Plus Department Store. Six commercial units, including one previously occupied by City Trust Bank, were converted to a big Home & Plus Department Store.<\/p>\n

Ho Jin Yoon owns Home and Plus. He also owns San Jose Mart, 99 Cents Supermarket, and Payless Supermarket.<\/p>\n

Saipan Tribune learned that Yoon leased the entire three-story building. Yoon is said to be relocating to the building his Payless Supermarket in Chalan Kanoa. <\/p>\n

Last Feb. 13, fire of unknown cause broke out at one of the rooms of Capital Hotel in Garapan. <\/p>\n

Last Feb. 11, a 3-year-old boy was injured during a fire that broke out at an apartment in Susupe. <\/p>\n

Last Jan. 20, a car caught fire in front of Mount Carmel School in Chalan Kanoa, while another fire broke out at a shipping container at the old dumpsite in Puerto Rico. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A three-hour fire engulfed yesterday morning the Home & Plus Department Store in San Antonio,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":224187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[1351,4234,1111,2573],"class_list":["post-224181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-chalan-kanoa","tag-dfems","tag-mount-carmel-school","tag-payless-supermarket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}