Quezon City fire fighters on late Thursday said the water sprinkler system of the Great Eastern Hotel on Quezon Avenue, Quezon City, appeared to have malfunctioned when fire broke out on the seventh floor, GMA News’ Saksi reported early Friday morning.

They said the fire that spread toward the eighth floor could have been contained early had the sprinkler system worked.

Firemen also noted that before they battled the flames, the two floors were dry.

But the hotel owner, Ricardo Ng, said the hotel’s water system is working properly, saying sprinklers on floors not affected by the blaze will not activate.

“There’s no fire here…that’s why the sprinklers did not activate," Ng told GMA News in an interview while inside a room that was not hit by the fire.

The same report said firemen were able to put out the blaze around 11:50 pm, nearly three hours after the fire was tapped in.

A provincial director of the Department of the Interior and Local Government was the lone fatality in the fire that also injured 30 people.

Senior Supt. Elmo San Diego of the Quezon City Police District identified the fatality as Rodolfo Viloria of the DILG Ilocos Sur provincial office.

Viloria reportedly sustained bone injuries after jumping from the eighth floor of the building.

The report said most of the injured guests were occupants of the eighth floor where they jumped when the fire started early in the night.

The fire reached Task Force Charlie as of 10 p.m. Thursday. QTV-11 television reported that many of those who were injured suffered cuts after breaking glass windows to get to safety.

Many guests were forced to go up to the hotel's rooftop and await rescue there because of the thick smoke.

At least one female guest was reported to have suffocated and was rushed to the Capitol Medical Center. Rescuers still could not give an estimate on how many guests were in the hotel as rescue operations were still ongoing as of 10 p.m.

"Yung isang guest tumalon mula sa 12th or 14th floor. Sinalo ko sa 9th floor (One of the guests jumped from the 12th or 14th floor. It was lucky I caught the guest at the 9th floor)," said a hotel supervisor initially identified as Clifford Bangan.

Bangan said the hotel has 20 floors. The sixth and seventh floors appeared to be affected most in the fire, he said.

He also insisted the fire exits in the hotel are working.

It was one of the largest hotel fires in Quezon City since August 2001, when a fire that hit the Manor Hotel in Quezon City left more than 70 dead and 100 injured.

An investigation showed the six-story Manor Hotel had no working smoke alarms, and some of the fire exits were locked or obstructed and there were no emergency lights or sprinkler systems.

In 1996, 162 people, mainly teenagers, were killed in a blaze at the Ozone Disco, which had no alarm systems, emergency lights, sprinkler systems or proper fire exits.