A mother Scops owl and two chicks were saved by children last Tuesday from a burned forested portion of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) grounds in Baguio City.

According to the children who were from Purok 6 in Barangay Kias, they were looking for firewood in the vicinity of a recent blaze when they found the owls inside a hole of a burnt tree.

“We just saw these… maybe they’re hungry…,” said Mrs. Julis Culat, mother of the children.

The family immediately surrendered the owls to the authority for treatment in case of possible injuries that the birds may have incurred from a fire incident last Sunday.

Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said however that the owls should be brought back to their natural habitat.

Teber Dionisio, DENR-Cordillera Administrative Region senior ecosystem manager, said: “We’ll return these…. But let’s tell the residents not to interfere with these [birds].”

He added that this had been their third time to receive owls surrendered to their office for this year.

PMA was disturbed Sunday evening by the grass fire. The blaze started in a forested area near the Enlisted Personnel Barrio and Igorot Lodge. An estimated four hectares of land were razed and more or less two thousand trees were gutted.

Senior Police Officer 4 Jesus Yango of Baguio Fire Department said that the fire may have been started by some farmers cleaning the area and forgot to put it out.

The firemen had difficulty going to the area because of the steep path. Fortunately, houses were far from the scene and barracks were not affected. It took nine hours before the fire was completely snuffed out. Xenia Ribaya, ABS-CBN Baguio