A fire gutted the office of deputy presidential spokesman Lorelei Fajardo on the fourth floor of the Tahanan ng Masa building inside the Malaca?ang compound yesterday.

In Taguig City, a man died due to heart failure during a blaze that left 500 squatter families homeless while in Quezon City, a two-story house went up in smoke.

Fajardo, who is also the presidential assistant for Central Luzon, said the alarm sounded at 12:44 p.m. yesterday, the first working day of the year.

?Almost all of the documents of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Central Luzon were burned but hopefully there are files saved in the computer that can be recovered. Our memo for the Office of the Executive Secretary regarding our report for the last quarter was also burned,? she told reporters.

?My staff told me it was due to faulty wiring. Our photocopying machine exploded. The ceiling in our office collapsed but firemen responded to the incident immediately and the fire did not last for more than an hour,? said Fajardo, who was out at the time.

The damaged office was around 150 meters away from the Palace; the President was on a working visit in Misamis Occidental province.

Supt. Felix Abrenica, the district fire marshall, said the fire was declared under control at 1:07 p.m.

SFO1 Reynaldo Faller Jr., Taguig fireman, said William Buquid, 48, died before reaching the hospital. Fire broke out in the shanty colony around 7:30 p.m. in Sitio Masigasig, Western Bicutan, lasting until 9 p.m.

In December 2006, about 200 shanties turned to ashes in the same neighborhood.

Reaching third alarm, the Kamuning fire that hit Andy Reyes? house at K-4th Street started 8:15 a.m. and was out in an hour and a half. Joyce Pangco Pa?ares, Jing Villamente and Ferdinand Fabella